This Is A Call

Visiting is pretty
Visiting is good
Seems that all they ever wanted was a brother

This can be a secret
We can keep it good
Even all the ever wanting had a problem

Yes, this is a call, but not to any of Dave's past resignations (or to any of the many angry, angry youtube commenters below that clip - why do they get so nasty, and why can we not resist morbidly reading them?).

This is in fact a call to any would-be Dojo kenshi out there, and it's a very serious call at that. Why? Well, there's a plan afoot, and it's a very good plan if it works, to get a Gold Coast based team into the Brisbane Premier League. Clearly, a coastal expansion team would be a great thing for the BPL, but sadly it isn't such a good thing for DojoMojo. You see, half a dozen or so of our kenshi are Gold Coasters themselves, and they've been making the trip to play the Dojo Way in Brisbane every week for years. But starting next season, our old chums Stefan, Mike, Lee, Phil & Darren aim to be wearing GC jerseys and we wish them all the best. Including the best and most humiliating defeats upon each encounter with the Dojo...

But all of that is assuming there will still be a Dojo for the Gold Coasters, and all you other SE Qld frisbophiles to play against, once nearly half our players have departed. So - have you ever wished you could feel for yourself the quality fabric of the world famous Dojo shirt? And have one in black AND white? And have your name mentioned regularly on the only local team blog that ever gets updated (shame, Wetnose, shame)? And not have to do any training ever (assuming here that you're already 6'5" with unmatched natural talent)? Well, now is the time to turn those fantasies into reality, even if you're none of the above! It's a pretty simple story - DojoMojo needs YOU (no, not you Cupcake), and needs you NOW. Feel free to email stephen (at) ark (dot) net (dot) au and demand your spot on the team.

Oh yeah, while we're here we might as well add in a quick recap of the Grand Final that we lost last season. It would be really quick and easy to say that the final was won by Mike Neild, but in actual fact the final was lost by DojoMojo. We were ahead by a lot with not much time left, and managed to lose the game despite being handed multiple J-Ray turnover gifts - sometimes several in one point.

To be fair, Jason also threw most of the goals that Mike caught, but his real impact came down to two throws, both of which were pulls in consecutive points in the dying moments of the game, when Bugs were 3 points down and all Dojo had to do to win was score 1 measly point. After a nervy Dojo turnover and Bug score, Jason proceeded to put the next two pulls deep into the back corner of the endzone with plenty of hangtime, giving his defending teammates plenty of time to set up and forcing the Dojo to go for risky throws over and around the Bug D, leading to back-to-back turnovers within 20m of our own endzone. Anyone that plays team sport can tell you that this change in momentum is all the Bugs needed to tip the game in their favour, especially when Mike was there to grab what swill he could get near (the turnover count was sky high in every sense) and accept the victory that the Dojo seemed so keen to hand over.

Gotta say - watching all this happen from the sideline with both calves cramped as usual was all the inspiration this team blogger and occasional frisbee player needed to make getting back into proper shape a high-priority New Year's resolution, alongside "win BPL". The kenshi kernel you know and love/loathe will be there to have another crack at the leaden R.C. Dog Cup this season, but only if we can find some new teammates to walk the Dojo Way with. Drop us a line if you reckon that might be you.

Dojo Royale

Yes, it's been a while since we last posted anything here at the Dojo blog. Why? Well, we've been on a little holiday, played some golf, done some gardening and generally done anything other than play or talk Ultimate. In fact, we can quickly summarise the Dojo's on-field Ultimate exploits since our last post by simply noting that the Dojo has won every game, most by a comfy margin.

So of course when yet another "training week" came around (immediately following the BPL's Uni Games no-play week) we were looking for anything other than Ultimate training to occupy our Thursday night. And what better substitute for a night of hard running and intensive skills practice than to take our places around the table at Andy "Coopers" Lankowski's place for a night of high-stakes poker - the inaugural Dojo Royale poker night.

As you can see from the image below, some were taking the event very seriously. That's Andy McLean decked out in the unbuttoned waistcoat (and newsreader-spec shorts below the table), trumped only for seriousness by the "Hustling German" Stefan Schmidt, looking like a cross between Eminem and an elderly driver with his hoodie up and dark specs on (sadly not caught on camera). Stefan also saw fit to let us know on the night that he'd previously spent 2 years as a poker dealer in some sort of travelling German poker circus. The things he can do with poker chips are truly arousing.


What you can't see in that photo is the huge stack of chips sitting in front of Mr McLean. At this point of the night he was undisputed chip leader, and it wasn't long before the final winner was decided. So in approximate order of departure from the table (we really should've posted this sooner with a fresher memory), the players on the night were:

- Andy Lankowski (great host, lots of bad hands)
- Mike Morgan (made the mistake of thinking that his trip-4 on the turn was going to be enough to beat the all-in Sensei's pair of aces in the hand and a 2 on the river giving a sensational straight)
- Stefan Rappazzo (had been duking it out all night in his own brash ultra-rapid style, opting against all common sense not to buy back in at the 9pm deadline and yet somehow hanging in there for another hour or so)
- Stefan Schmidt (can't remember how he went out, but most likely it was bluffing big time with absolutely nothing in hand)
- Stephen Cameron (unbelievably unlucky to lose out with his solid 2-pair from the flop against a big spending chip leader McLean who picked up an outrageously unlikely straight on the river, not at all similar to the the way the Sensei had knocked Morgs out earlier on)

That left the pot at the mercy of Leon McIntyre (the chap looking so relaxed in the photo) and Andy McLean. And actually it was all over the very next hand. Leon was clearly keen to wrap things up for better or worse, and went all in after the flop with nothing but maybe a king in hand, Andy (with a massive chip lead) went with him with pretty much the same hand. And as the cards came down it was the man in the white waistcoat who came out the winner.

So there you go, nothing on the Dojo blog for a couple of months and now something that has nothing to do with Ultimate at all. Or does it???

BTW - extra points for spotting the non-Dojo ring-in in the photo...

Naked Ego?

We don't normally indulge in general Ultimate gossip here at the DojoMojo blog, but when this tragic/funny news item landed in our inbox this morning we couldn't resist sharing.

And that was probably because we instantly felt a sense of trans-global, anti-establishment kinship with Dusty Becker and his obviously very committed Oregon University Ego team-mates (who are apparently a very highly rated US college team) who, like the kenshi, haven't let their athletic ambitions cause them to forget how to live a little... Indeed, it seems that the Ego boys have a relationship with their College's student sports board that's not at all dissimilar to the Dojo's with our own BPL League Director (one day we'll look back and laugh, Stu).

So, Dusty & co, we just wanted to put it out there that we're right with you (assuming you're not countenancing doing these things simultaneously...) when you say: "Speeding, drinking, nudity — they’re not bad things... They’re things a big portion of the community doesn’t think are wrong." The story says that Ego players have had four speeding fines across the whole team in two years!!! Just four. We have no doubt at all that there would be many individual kenshi who've received more drive-by taxes than that over the last two years. And if nudity is "wrong" then surely we should all be reprimanded at birth???

Anyway, only a small insight into this unfortunate situation can be gleaned from the news articles, but this story seems to be a terrible one of moral misunderstandings, disproportionate punishments and a general lack of good humour. We're not sure how the student board can actually stop the Ego team from travelling to play - one assumes the severing of future funding would be the only viable instrument - but it seems obvious that this is a prime example of how the inherent anti-authoritarian nature of Ultimate doesn't always sit well within structures of authority (whether that be the local student board or the local constabulary).

It's easy to get used to the Ultimate players' privilege of each individual (rather than some impersonal figure of authority) making rule calls based on their own, personally accountable assessment of every alleged infraction, and often very difficult to accept that the rest of the world at large can't work that way as well...