USA Ultimate Skills Challenge - Program Guidelines
INTRODUCTION
The USA Ultimate Skills Challenge provides a way for players to have fun, while developing their ultimate skills and connecting with their local community and beyond. Choose from a variety of challenges that focus on throwing, catching, athleticism and even some cool disc tricks. Through the USA Ultimate mobile app, track your personal performance in each skill, and if you’d like, you can opt in to the leaderboard to see how you, your friends, teammates and others in the community stack up.
The Skills Challenge program offers a flexible way for participants to access activities even with limited space or resources. Most of the challenges can be done with one or two people, and many of them can be done in or around a home or neighborhood, without the need for special equipment or the need to access or pay for large spaces. Where large spaces are required or recommended, free public spaces should work and costs to participate in local competitions, if desired, can be kept low.
The Skills Challenge also offers an avenue for local organizers to team up with other local nonprofits to reach a more diverse audience and offer a free intro to disc sports and turn new groups of kids on to ultimate!
The USA Ultimate app is free on iOS and Android. A printable PDF is available here for use by individuals who don’t have access to the mobile app.
For assistance accessing resources, such as discs, please email skillschallenge@usaultimate.org with questions or requests.
PROGRAM GOALS
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Skills Development - Offer a new way for individuals of all ages to learn new skills or improve existing ones across a variety of focus areas.
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Community Engagement - Provide an accessible way for individuals from a variety of backgrounds to have fun and feel connected to others in the community through a shared online activity tracking experience.
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Competition - Create a way for players to engage in competitions, either in-person or virtually, using both personal and peer results to create challenges, set new performance goals and possibly win local prizes.
REGISTRATION
Log in to your USA Ultimate account, or create one for free. There is no registration fee and no membership requirement to get on the app. Once you’re signed up, use the app to learn about the skills, try a few and start tracking your personal progress. Program registration is always open, so sign up any time. Registration is open to all ages. If you are under 13, you will need help from a parent or guardian to create a USA Ultimate account and participate in the Skills Challenge.
SKILLS CHALLENGES
There are currently 12 skills challenges included in the program. The challenges are divided into four categories:
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Athleticism - Work on your speed, agility, endurance and body movement.
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Disc Fun - Improve your on-field game without even knowing it by practicing these fun tricks.
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Game Skills - Combine multiple skills, such as throwing, running and catching into one challenge.
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Throwing - Test and improve your throwing accuracy, technique and range.
Most challenges are designed to be done on your own or with the help of one other person to time or count. Many challenges can be done in a relatively small space, while some will require a field.
Here’s a list of the challenges and a short description. For a full description, download the app where you will find more details as well as instructional videos for each challenge. A printable PDF of the challenge descriptions is also available here.
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Category
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Name
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Objective
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1.
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Athleticism
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Cone Race
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How fast can you run through the W and tag all the cones?
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2.
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Athleticism
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Compass
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How fast can you sprint, shuffle, and backpedal through the compass?
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3.
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Athleticism
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Shuttle
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How many 10yd sprints can you do in a minute? Build endurance & power in this solo running activity. Touch each cone as many times as you can by running in between them.
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4.
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Disc Fun
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Disc Spin
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How long can you spin the disc on your finger?
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5.
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Disc Fun
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Flip Toss
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How many disc flips can you complete in 1 minute?
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6.
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Disc Fun
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Alligator Spins
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How many catches can you make after a 360 degree spin in 30 seconds?
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7.
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Game Skills
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Throw, Run, Catch (TRC)
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What's the maximum distance you can run to catch your own throw?
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8.
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Game Skills
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Figure 8s
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How many catches can you make while running in 1 minute?
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9.
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Throwing
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Throw for Distance - Backhand
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Test how far you can throw a backhand, while keeping the disc in bounds.
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10.
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Throwing
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Throw for Distance - Forehand
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Test how far you can throw a forehand, while keeping the disc in bounds.
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11.
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Throwing
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Sink a Disc
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How many of the 20 consecutive throws can you get to land in the laundry basket?
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12.
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Throwing
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Accuracy Ladder
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You have 3 attempts to hit your target and move to the next rung of the distance ladder; how far can you get?
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PERSONAL TRACKING
Participants can use the app to log their personal results in each skills challenge, view historical results, and track their progress over time.
COMMUNITY LEADERBOARD
Individuals will be able to opt-in to have their results posted on the community leaderboard and see how they stack up relative to others who have tried each skills challenge.
Age Group and Location - Individuals will be able to see results in each skill for others who opt-in to the leaderboard, as well as their place in the standings. The leaderboard can also be filtered by seven different age groups (U-13, 13-17, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55+), and by state, to see how others in your age bracket and state are doing.
Check out what’s possible in each skill area and set goals for yourself based on what others have been able to achieve. Goals should be specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, timely and self-determined (SMARTS). It’s not always about the outcome, but rather the process that leads to the desired goal. Process goals help us build healthy habits and celebrate incremental successes.
LOCAL COMPETITIONS AND OFFICIAL RESULTS
In addition to providing a way for individuals to track personal performance on their own, the Skills Challenge program also provides a way for organizers to put together local competitions. At USA Ultimate sanctioned competitions, individuals will have the opportunity to have their challenge results verified so they can be marked as "official" in their tracker and on the leaderboard.
The structure of competitions can be flexible and may take a variety of forms. It’s really up to the organizer and the local community.
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Adapt the competition to meet Return to Play Guidelines, following local health and safety regulations. Individual skills competitions are easier than many team-based activities to adapt for distancing, cleaning, screening, staggered scheduling and other health and safety requirements.
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Choose a subset of challenges to include in a competition. Determine based on available space, the age or ability of participants, time constraints, volunteer staffing or other resource considerations.
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Offer different divisions based on age or ability. Age divisions could match the age brackets on the leaderboard, but don’t necessarily have to for the local competition.
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Offer prizes for performance and/or for participation.
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Rent a facility like a single soccer or football field (lines will be helpful for some challenges).
SPIRIT OF THE GAME
Like ultimate, the Skills Challenge is a self-officiated competition. Participants are expected to follow the principles of Spirit of the Game, including knowing the rules, being responsible for following them and respecting others participating in the program. While there are developmental and competitive elements to the program, it is primarily intended to be fun! So, keep your primary focus on the enjoyment of throwing and catching, running and jumping, and interacting with others in the program, either in person or online.
DISCS
Disc challenges were designed to be done with USA Ultimate approved discs. Participants in the U-13 age bracket are encouraged to use U12-approved discs, and official results will be recorded for the U-13 age bracket using U12-approved discs.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
Participants and event organizers should follow USA Ultimate Health and Safety Guidelines as well as Return to Play requirements to mitigate risks associated with COVID-19.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
The Skills Challenge program is designed to be able to grow and evolve. New skills and variations on existing skills may be incorporated into future versions of the program. New types of events, both virtual and in person, will be developed over time. Participants and organizers are encouraged to use their experience with the program to provide feedback and ideas, and to encourage others to get involved to make the program more fun for everyone.
CONTACT/FEEDBACK
Please reach out to skillschallenge@usaultimate.org with questions and feedback.