SOTG Exercises for Ultimate

⚠️ These are extracted and adapted from Julia SCHRATZ' SOTG Exercise Catalogue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iQL4tMTFfn_SuMeUF5odePw-FXH3h-f7/view?usp=sharing

Overview

There are exercises for the following areas:

1. Play Nice: Attitude and Self-Control
2. Play Fair: Fairness
3. Play Together: Communication

Activities for Play Nice: Attitude and Self-Control

How do we react to calls?

Learn a technique to stay calm during critical moments in a game. Learn the difference between reacting and responding.

The BE CALM method describes how to resolve a call calmly in 6 steps:

1. Breathe
2. Explain
3. Consider
4. Ask
5. Listen
6. Make the call

How do we react to mistakes?

We all make mistakes, even at the highest level. How we react can either strengthen or destroy team spirit. Positive support helps your teammate to:

• Regain confidence
• Find focus
• Gain new energy

💚 Do:

Encourage, help focus on the task at hand, support

🚫 Avoid:

Criticism, sarcasm, overreactions

How do we celebrate?

Celebrating is part of the joy of playing Ultimate. But how we celebrate can make the difference between good spirit and a tense atmosphere. We want to strengthen the Spirit across teams, not break it.

💚 Do:

• Share emotions with your team while acknowledging the opponent’s performance
• Stay calm even in intense moments

🚫 Avoid:

• Celebrate opponent mistakes
• Make fun of opponents or making disrespectful comments
• Aggressively spiking the disc

This shows: self-control, respect, and emotional maturity

Activity: Breathe

Step 1: Before Practice

Infiltrate a few players and tell them to make provocative calls during the practice.

Step 2: Before Play

Before you start playing, explain to your team that the focus of today's practice is not to react immediately to a call, but to stay calm.

How can we do that? Every time a call happens, do not say anything immediately, but:

1. take a deep breath
2. count out loud to three (maybe even as a team)

Important:

What your players do not know:

→ Before the training, you selected a few players and told them to make provocative calls, regardless of the situation — even if they are wrong.

The goal is to challenge your players a bit and observe:

• how they react
• whether they focus on their breathing
• whether they actually apply the exercise

Step 3: During Practice

Observe how the game develops — and enjoy it.

Step 4: After Practice

• Afterwards, come together in a Spirit Circle and talk about the experience.
• Give everyone space to speak.
• Then explain the setup and reflect together.

Activity: Support and Reflect

At the end of training, form a Spirit Circle.

Questions:

💡 How do we usually react to mistakes? What works and what doesn’t?

💡 What do you need from your teammates in order to feel supported?

Each player shares an example of a moment when they received positive or negative support.

You can also agree on a magic word that reminds you of this in tense moments.

Activity: Celebrate Your Rival - Spread the Love

First reflect as a team.

💡 Does someone in our team celebrate in a way that might make opponents uncomfortable?

💡 What kind of celebration culture do we want as a team?

💡 How can we show respect, even when we are very excited after scoring an important point?

Activity

• At the beginning of practice, choose someone from your team — ideally someone you sometimes clash with.
• The next time you play, consciously recognize something positive about that person:

• • defense
  • throws
  • clean cuts
  • decision making
  • etc.

After a point, go to that person and tell them.

Observe how the spirit changes.

Afterwards, discuss your observations in a closing spirit circle.