Ultimate Frisbee Books

Well, as we all know, it's a real good book. lots of useful information with a wealth of experience behind it.

Wow that is really a great book, pretty much everything is in there, from individual skills (throws, cuts, etc), team skills (defense and offense tactics), etc. Probably the best book about Ultimate Frisbee to date.

This book is great for learning (and relearning) the fundamentals as well as quality techniques of upper level play. I would especially recommend it for any high school or college level player or coach.

It took almost 2 weeks for the books to get here. The next time I will proably use Barnes and Noble where the free shipping takes about 5 days. I needed these books for my grandsons' birthdays, and they were very slow in arriving. Even if your shipping is free, it needs to be faster. I hope to hear from you. Clairelis Baxter

Found the book to be very helpful in teaching new skill development and game strategies.

Essential Ultimate is written by 2 of the best coaches in the Junior scene. It is targeted at beginner and intermediate coaches of high school and college/university clubs, yet is very applicable to most senior clubs.

I compared Essential Ultimate to Parinella and Zazslow's "Ultimate Techniques and Tactics" as they have a similar audience, and you may know that text.

Essential Ultimate:
- has a better format as a teaching resource (examples of drills with diagrams, trouble shooting tips, as opposed to large chunks of prose, though it could improve even more)
- includes a better introduction for those new to ultimate: 10 simple rules, the field dimensions, and notes on self-refereeing
- has more on non-ultimate coaching elements such as warm ups, cool downs, the mental game and starting a team.

The difference between the 2 texts is encapsulated by the section on throwing. Baccarini and Booth talk about the key mechanics and how to coach them: correct grip (photos shown), wrist snap and follow through, troubleshooting tips for backhand, forehand and the hammer, how to throw in the wind, and a simple drill for teaching beginners to throw. In comparison, Parinella and Zazslow start with 4 principles of throwing that assume decent throwing skills, then discuss handling tactics, how to break the mark and more.

Essential Ultimate is aimed at coaches, while Ultimate Techniques and Tactics is aimed at experienced players (who probably lead and are player-coaches on their team).

My only significant gripe with Essential Ultimate is that it still has a bit of the flaw that Ultimate Techniques and Tactics had: parts of the book are large slabs of text. It is mostly a reference book, but at times tries to be more of an essay.

The text can explain some good general philosophies that may open you to new ideas, such as "Rather than just react, defenders should pre-act... so that an offensive player's explosive movement is preempted by an equally explosive anticipatory action on the part of the defender."

Unfortunately there are a number of self-evident observations that are unlikely to impact on how a coach coaches, if they have played more than a little ultimate, e.g. on man-on-man defense "What you hope will result is that covered receivers are scattered and clogging the passing lanes and thrower's choices are limited throwing into coverage, punting a Hail Mary pass downfield, or being stalled... And no-one ever wants to be stalled". Or the details on how a disc doesn't fly like a ball in the first paragraph. Truisms like these are clear once you have played even a little ultimate, where they are better learnt, and they feel superfluous to the book.

In comparison, pretty much all the diagrams, drill explanations, breakout boxes with tips, and troubleshooting lists are gold. They are very clear and very applicable. If a coach has a need for a certain type or drill, or issues with teaching a specific skill, they can easily refer to these tools. I've played at numerous World Championships, and coached for 8 years, and found quite a few concepts and drills I am now keen to use.

My wishes for the second edition are:
- communicate some ideas and tools through tables, case studies or acronyms as well, with more concise text.
- examples of session plans and season plans
- an index of the drills for quick reference

Lastly the sections on fitness, psychology and starting a program are brilliant. Any quality coach should consider these aspects and they give a good basic coverage of how they apply to an ultimate team. An experienced ultimate player who is a coach, will learn the most from these 3 chapters. A coach or teacher coming in from another sport will likely learn more from the rich chapters on ultimate specific skills.

Essential Ultimate has set the bar for all coaching resources in Ultimate.

As a player-coach for several years, I was very impressed by the supplemental information provided in this book. The text has helped me articulate the mechanics involved in fundamental ultimate techniques such as throwing, catching, etc. as well as supplying important information about defensive and offensive strategy.

I heartily recommend Jim Parinella's book as well, and have found it particularly useful for my own individual development. However, in terms of coaching and teaching your team and the players on it, I think this is the best ultimate book on the market today.
-Ben
PS
In my opinion, the three most useful sections: throwing, offensive strategy, and fitness for ultimate players.

"Wow" was my first reaction when Essential Ultimate arrived in the mail. With the rapid growth of juniors, high school, college, and club ultimate, finally, there is a textbook to teach skills correctly. For those who learn through pictures, this book rocks.

--Erik Sebesta
The Ultimate Showcase Series (USS)

Whether you are an experienced coach or an aspiring ultimate player this book will help you improve every facet of you game. I had the pleasure of meeting Michael at a coaching clinic and I must say he is the cream of the crop in terms of coaching. This book covers everything from core fitness, learning ultimate and some tips to even help the advanced players. As a fairly new coach myself I really enjoyed the way different drills and skills are explained this book. It has become my Ultimate Bible very quickly.

I played ultimate in college and was looking to get a team together here in san diego. This book helped refresh my memory on basic rules/strategies and also offered lots of new insight into the finer points of the game. Very easy to understand, lots of helpful photos and diagrams throughout. This guy definitely knows his stuff!

I recommend this book highly to anyone who wants to learn more about ultimate frisbee. Twenty years ago I was playing this game in a midwestern college, only to return to West Virginia and receive blank stares when I mentioned the term. Now the sport has grown, with West Virginians as well as people from all over the globe playing! This title is evidence of the sport's growing popularity.

Studarus starts with the basics of ultimate, including the rules of the game, the spirit of the game, and numerous descriptions of how to throw a disc. He then covers a number of offenses, defenses, and drills to sharpen skills. The book concludes with some historical information regarding prominent ultimate teams and well-known ultimate players.

If you're new to ultimate frisbee and want to learn more, this title is the one to get. If you're a seasoned ultimate player and don't have this book in your library, it would be a wise investment as a basic primer.

I would highly recommend this book. I was a novice and looking for a good book to help familiarize myself with Ultimate, and this book helped me out. I learned individual skills, basic throwing and team skills, plus read some interesting interviews with experienced players.

i wouldn't recommend this book to any frisbee player,who's playing in a team,the lack of lessons and drills was disappointing,
if you browse the web for informations about ultimate,you get ten times more input then this book is able to give,so if you choose this book,be aware that it's just giving an oversight,but no interesting infos for more advanced players.

This book does an OK job of laying out some of the "fundamentals of Ultimate," but as others have said it's not as polished as it could be either visually (it looks like someone just printed it straight out of MS Word) or content-wise. The sections are often too brief, leaving out some of the subtle (and even some not-so-subtle) facets of the game.

If you're going to buy a book on Ultimate, either to teach yourself or to get ideas for coaching a team, a much better investment is Parinella and Zaslow's book, which is about same price and has a LOT more material (even though it, too, isn't perfect).

When this book first came out, it was basically the only one of its kind widely available. Nowadays, the only thing that this book has that Parinella's doesn't is a brief player/team profile section, which is nice but doesn't really add to one's understanding on the field. Back in 2003 I might have given this book 4 stars but now it scratches out a 3 for me.