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He saw it gliding effortlessly through the air, cutting a trajectory straight toward him. The disk momentarily eclipsed the sun, then swooped to complete its course. He caught it with fluid grace, firmly in his grip, and felt the raw power of true sportsmanship coursing through his veins. Yes, this is the true power of the Frisbee, that such a feeling of achievement can really be captured by such simply motion. Of course you can embellish the act, but the aim of the game remains the same – throw and catch.
The first to conceive of ‘flying disks’ knew only one half of the story. The ancient Greeks obviously had some Freudian thing going on – just how far can you throw yours? Thus discus is still a sport at the Olympics.
The first disk games involving duos or more occurred on the East Coast of the reliable US of A sometime in the early ‘50’s. Students from Yale University were abducting pie platters from the bakery of one Mr. William R. Frisbie, and then proceeding to throw these baking utensils at each other. Don’t try this with casserole dishes kids. Weather Mr. Frisbie went broke trying to replenish his stock of platters isn’t in the history books.
Pretty much around the same time but at the other edge of the country, Mr Walter F. Morrison of Southern California was looking at a more commercial angle of throwing dishes around – one inspired by ‘UFO’ mania (in fact, in some sci-fi movies the ILM of the era used pie lids to ‘represent’ such spacecraft). He managed to sell the concept to Richard Knerr of the Wham – O Company, and in 1957 you could buy your very own ‘Flyin’ Saucer’ straight from the shelf. So why the Frisbee instead of the Walt, or the Morris? Knerr saw the students of Yale playing with their platters, dropped the dodgy sci-fi tag, and claimed the name of Frisbee (albeit spelt incorrectly). And so the disk we know and love came into being in 1959.
To this day, Frisbee is locked in all our consciousness, young and old alike, just check the parks next summer (Frisbee truly is the game of this season). An ageing though sprightly couple up my road only appear to play Frisbee, proving that this piece of plastic is a vital source of exercise, and also a key into a larger society. The joy of Frisbee being the ease of becoming a master, that we can all play a part. OK, as you begin you will drop it a few times as you employ ‘lobster hands’, and you will cut a scary arc with your first throws, but in no time you will be controlling the disk as an extension of your mind, and a smooth fluid synergy will form between the participants playing. Universal harmony through Frisbee. Let it fly.
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