This week we chat with Toronto 6ixers star Lauren Kimura. Co-hosted by Tulsa Douglas and Luisa Neves
In this episode Lauren tells us about her time as a multi-sport athlete growing up: specifically how her hockey and ultimate careers were intertwined. She talks about playing hockey competitively through her childhood and into her first year of college, and then tells us about her transition to ultimate. Lauren talks about the club scene in Toronto, and her switch from Traffic to the 6ixers, and then gives some insights into the 6ixers meteoric rise the last half decade. She also discusses where she hopes the 6ixers, and Canadian ultimate, go next. Finally, she explains her job and her experience working during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is the sixth episode of Season 2 of Share the Air. To listen to previous guests, check out our Season 1 episodes wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to hear even more of us, check out our Patreon page, where you can listen to bonus content every two weeks, as well as access other cool benefits! We already have a number of bonus episode out, filled with new interviews, thoughtful discussions, great stories, and extra content that we couldn't fit into the original episodes. Also, if you want to rep some sweet Share the Air gear, check out our new store, courtesy of VC Ultimate! For more information on upcoming episodes, follow us on our socials: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Share the Air is hosted by Tulsa Douglas and Luisa Neves. It is planned, edited, and produced by Tulsa Douglas, Luisa Neves, and Tim Bobrowski. Share the Air's music is by Grey Devlin and Christopher Hernandez. Share the Air is sponsored by the National Ultimate Training Camp, VC Ultimate, and the Centre for Applied Neuroscience.
[00:00:07] Luisa: Hello listeners. Welcome back to our sixth episode of our second season. Before we get into some things that we wanted to share with you all, Tulsa texted before this meeting, that she had a special topic for the intro. So our producer Tim is listening patiently and... I'm going to turn it over to
[00:00:23] Tulsa: patiently?
[00:00:24] Luisa: Patiently. You're correct. Super impatiently has been waiting. We've made him wait for over an hour to hear what the special topics to introduce today's episode is, but I'll let Tulsa go ahead and do that.
[00:00:35] Tulsa: So I just want to give like a general and also specific shout out to people having to work in non-ideal situations in the pandemic. And specifically Tim, our producer is a teacher in a middle school and the COVID stuff has just been really sucky, not ideal. And so, I want to appreciate all the people that have to work and be treated not nicely and deal with it and help people and try and teach kids. So, yeah. Shout out to Tim for also teaching and helping with this podcast on top of it and always being willing to step up and do stuff, even when he's got a lot on his plate.
[00:01:17] Luisa: Yeah. we appreciate you so much, Tim. So thank you.
[00:01:20] Tim: Well, thanks. was really nice.
[00:01:26] Luisa: An idea that I tossed back to Tulsa is... I just right now could rattle off so many names of friends of ours and teammates of ours that are teachers themselves. So I don't know if it would be interesting for us to do some sort of episode or a bonus episode with some of our friends and teammates that are also teachers and we could have on our producer, Tim and any other guests.
[00:01:48] Tulsa:
[00:01:48] Tulsa: Yeah. I think we'd love to hear from anyone who's working in any sort of challenging work situation. I'm thinking about my sister, who's a ER, nurse and. She's just been like really mistreated and overworked and it's a tough situation in the hospital. So I would like to kind of elevate the voices of people who are in these situations right now. So teachers, healthcare workers, lot of other folks. So yeah, I think we'd love to hear from anyone and you could send us an email and we could have you on, or you could send us an audio clip or if you want to write something and we read it, I think we could do that, too.
[00:02:21] Tim: Thanks you too. That was really nice and thoughtful.
[00:02:24] Tulsa: Yeah. Before we get into our conversation with Lauren today, a few plugs for interesting things we've got going on. So we have a merge store with VC that you can find on their website and you can get t-shirts, tank tops, jerseys, all this stuff with the Share the Air logo on it and rep us.
[00:02:42] Luisa: I don't know if I actually showed it to you, but my dad just ordered a Share the Air sun hoodie and, and it's also, very silly and very sweet. But yeah, I'll, I'll send you the picture later. It's pretty cute. But yeah, so my, you can join my dad and repping this podcast.
[00:02:58] Luisa: Other things that we have going on is, this will be available by the time that you're listening to this episode, but our next Tii with Tiina bonus episode is coming out. And in this episode, we talk with Tiina Booth about the show Ted Lasso, specifically from a coach's perspective, but we also just kind of analyze the show because we all love it so much. We do a lot of criticizing of it too, but again,
[00:03:22] Tulsa: It was a lot of
[00:03:22] Luisa: Fun because love it yeah. It was a lot of fun. So if you're interested in listening to that, you can subscribe to our Patreon. Once you subscribe, you can listen to that bonus episode and you can also listen to all of our other bonus episodes that are available to our Patreon subscribers.
[00:03:36] Tulsa: Now we'll jump into our conversation with Lauren Kimura.
[00:03:56] Luisa: Today, we're joined by Lauren Kimura. Lauren grew up in Surrey, British Columbia, and started playing ultimate in high school. Lauren attended McGill university where they say kinesiology and later studied public health at the University of Toronto. She has played with club teams, such as Vancouver Traffic, and more recently Toronto 6ixers.
[00:04:15] Luisa: In the last couple of years, Lauren has amassed a number of accolades, including two appearances on Ultiworld's First Team All Club lists, Ultimate Canada's 2018 Athlete of the Year, and Ultiworld's 2019 Club Offensive Player of the Year. She's a four time team Canada Athlete. And in 2019, they helped lead the Toronto 6ixers to their first USAU club national finals. Outside of ultimate, Lauren works as a policy development officer with the city of Toronto. Lauren. Thanks for joining us on Share the Air.
[00:04:44] Lauren Kimura: Thank you for having me.
[00:04:47] Luisa: Okay. can you sort of explain how you got started playing ultimate? I know that you've, you have a background, with other competitive sports, so just, you know, how you started in sports in general.
[00:04:57] Lauren Kimura: Yeah, sure. Starting with sports in general at a very young age, I was just kind of thrown into a bunch of different sports and played a few pretty competitively up into high school. I, I played soccer, I played ice hockey. I played softball even. And at some point I had started playing ultimate as well at my high school.
[00:05:23] Lauren Kimura: And I don't think that there were so many high school ultimate teams in our area at the time, but we just had one of those really enthusiastic teacher coaches who made his, his whole second job coaching the ultimate Frisbee team. And he would just kind of pull athletes from the school who played all these other sports.
[00:05:42] Lauren Kimura: So I got roped in and I started playing with my high school ultimate team, and then quickly found out about sort of the junior summer series that you could play outside of school. So I, I started doing that and that was all kind of as I think in my mind I was like, oh, this is this fun thing that I can do while cross-training for my other competitive sports, which at the time, yeah, basically I was playing a pretty high level.
[00:06:11] Lauren Kimura: I feel like the highest level of soccer and hockey, ice hockey and softball. And I just remember like going to multiple practices in a night or like, oh my God, it was nuts. Actually, I was just talking, my mom was recounting this, memory that she had that I was playing in a soccer tournament in this city, maybe an hour away from mine.
[00:06:34] Lauren Kimura: And during one of our byes, we had to like come back to Surrey so I could get my hockey photos done. And like we were changing in the car and it was so stressful and I just had a total meltdown and apparently I didn't go in for the photo. I was like too stressed by this schedule, just thinking it was ridiculous. I know.
[00:06:55] Luisa: You knew back then that it was ridiculous.
[00:06:57] Lauren Kimura: It was much. So as soon after that, I think around like grade 10, maybe the end of grade nine or grade 10, I, I sort of specialized in ice hockey and I still played the other sports, but just not at sort of the top level where you have to commit, you know, five days a week or something.
[00:07:13] Lauren Kimura: But then there on out high school, it was kind of about specializing in hockey and making a run to get recruited and just kind of push it as far as it could go. So towards the end of high school, that was like my big focus and ultimate was an opportunity just to have fun playing sports.
[00:07:34] Luisa: So it sounds like you were playing ice hockey pretty seriously. What happens with that?
[00:07:40] Lauren Kimura: Yeah. I was so, so yeah, I guess in grade 12, when you're trying to get recruited to play at college or whatever, it kind of becomes another job. I don't even remember applying for school because I was making my little videos and meeting with coaches and doing visits. And I felt like I was out of town almost every weekend on like a hockey tournament and just, I don't know when the school happened, but, I did end up getting recruited and then playing at Miguel.
[00:08:13] Lauren Kimura: And I think once all that was sort of like figured out at the end of grade 12, I must've had some time on my hands because I tried out for the, the U 19 women's ultimate team that I think they, we played in Germany in 2010 in Heilbronn if anybody remembers this kind of random Junior Worlds.
[00:08:34] Lauren Kimura: But, it just felt like for a few months, between the end of school and finishing all this hockey business, I just had months just to play Frisbee. And it was so much fun. Oh my God. It just felt like there was no pressure. The social aspect was huge. It was just a group of girls who kind of were, I don't know, everybody's like 17 or 18.
[00:08:57] Lauren Kimura: It's just such a fun sort of team environment to be on and I went off and played in the summer that year. We came second at world's against Colombia, which was just kind of nuts. And there were, there were all these amazing players on the Colombian team, like already, like Elizabeth Mosquera was on it, Laura Ospina I think, like, it was just so fun.
[00:09:20] Lauren Kimura: And then when I got back to Canada and was, remember I had like a month before I went off to McGill to start training for hockey. You had to like go a little bit early. And I immediately came back and like, had to go to this hockey camp for a week. And it was like playing with men who were like trying to free junior teams.
[00:09:40] Lauren Kimura: And it was just so intense. And, um, I was still like, my mind was still playing frisbee. It was a bit of a tough transition back. And then when I did eventually go to play at McGill I think I had a really hard time. I was just kind of at this point where I don't know with child athletes where you grow up doing a thing, because you're really good at it, you get a lot of positive reinforcement from that and a lot of positive feedback. And when you're sort of like shaping an identity for yourself, it's sort of hard to like pull those things apart. So I was just in this period of a lot of change in like a lot of opportunities, like moving across the country to a new school, totally new people.
[00:10:24] Lauren Kimura: I think I was really it as an opportunity to sort of figure out who I was outside of being an athlete and felt really constrained about being sort of in this very small, social group of all female hockey players and like all you all, all we had time for was practice. It was like morning practice, night practice, weekend tournament.
[00:10:47] Lauren Kimura: And it just kind of felt like all these new opportunities were passing me by and I couldn't get it out of my head. So I only really played the first season and it was really tough. Just to let go a piece of, you know, something that you've worked so hard towards. And like, you know, just my family was really happy about it.
[00:11:04] Lauren Kimura: Or like people were just generally like proud and I was proud too, just working really hard at something. And then having that thing be realized feels really good. And, yeah, no regrets in terms of actually like seeing it through, but, it was just one of those moments where, everything was kind of telling me that I had to like make space for something else and, just see sort of where a little bit of free time would take me. So I did end up doing that. But I, I also, I didn't have, I didn't play the first season of McGill college ultimate, because it was in the fall and, that's kind of when the hockey season was picking up and also it's so cold. It's so cold going from like playing on the west coast in the summers or just in the rain to like the wind and early morning practices when it's less than zero degrees.
[00:11:59] Lauren Kimura: Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:03] Tulsa: Yeah.
[00:12:04] Luisa: Wow. Okay. So you clearly played competitive sports for a long time. You have what seems like a lot of natural athleticism for many sports. But was there anything that, that was kind of missed in, in that jump from just sort of picking up with a random, almost, it sounded like an, almost like a high school pickup sort of class to trying out and playing for the U 19 team that is that it feels like a little bit of a jump.
[00:12:32] Tulsa: Yeah.
[00:12:33] Lauren Kimura: Maybe I skimmed over that a little bit. Yeah, interesting. Well, okay. First of all, when I, when I played juniors, like in high school, this was when it was still mixed division. We were playing mixed. I just feel like I was always a shooter. Like I was just like immediately kind of given a lot of space to do what I wanted to do.
[00:12:53] Lauren Kimura: And for me, it was pretty different from hockey just because there was so much the type of player that I was at hockey is when I started out was, definitely like, not the most talented, but definitely one of the hardest workers and like had a lot of and coachability or you know, being a good teammate, dedication, those sorts of things.
[00:13:14] Lauren Kimura: So I really like, kind of worked on the work aspect of being part of a team. Whereas I think with Frisbee, it was maybe an outlet to be really creative and like not care that much about screwing up and you know, just go out and do whatever you want. And I kind of did so I had a lot of space to do that.
[00:13:36] Lauren Kimura: And then and yeah, and then I played juniors and they're like these, you know, pretty intense junior programs in BC that I wasn't really a part of, but basically the coaches for those teams were just like, you need to be trying out, you need to do this first. They wanted me to play for, like, there was always this one junior team called the BC All Stars that was like, they would take all the best players in the lower mainland and the greater Vancouver area, just put them on one team. And obviously they won every year,
[00:14:06] Tulsa: And then play against other teams in the area?
[00:14:09] Lauren Kimura: Yeah, they would play against our team from the Fraser Valley. Um, I just, it was so unjust. It felt like, I don't know, I never played for this team. And I'm very grateful that I didn't first of all, because if you played for this BCL stars team, there were so many good players, you barely got playing time.
[00:14:27] Lauren Kimura: Like you barely got any touches. And they would just stomp everyone. So it felt kind of like, oh, why would I play in the summer to like, not play? So that was kind of nice because first of all, I didn't have to commute really far to go to these practices. And then yeah, like we built up sort of the talent in the Fraser Valley area, which wasn't really like the core talent pool at the time for juniors.
[00:14:49] Lauren Kimura: Since then the junior program in BC has grown exponentially and there's so many talented players coming from different regions. But at the time it just, I just, I'm just thrown back to that sort of like rivalry. Um, And then eventually, like when I played on the national team and when I played on Traffic, then I was playing with all those, all those people were, who were on BC All anyways. And I continued to be like, good friends with them now because they, they keep playing. Yeah, that was the beginning.
[00:15:22] Tulsa: So just a clarifying question is Canadian juniors, like the U.S. version of YCC, like a summer club team for different areas?
[00:15:33] Lauren Kimura: Yes, I believe so. I
[00:15:34] Tulsa: Okay. Yeah. Maybe you don't know what our YCC is. Yeah.
[00:15:39] Luisa: Helpful comparison. So you said you played for one season of ice hockey at McGill?
[00:15:45] Lauren Kimura: Yeah. I played one season of ice hockey and I was pretty much on my way out the whole time mentally. I was like processing the separation that I was going to have to that seemed imminent, I guess.
[00:15:59] Tulsa: How long between, when you stopped ice hockey and you started going to Frisbee stuff.
[00:16:05] Lauren Kimura: Oh, I think it was like the next year.
[00:16:07] Tulsa: Okay. So you, there was some time in between.
[00:16:09] Lauren Kimura: Yeah.
[00:16:10] Tulsa: Yeah. You said Frisbee was in the fall.
[00:16:12] Lauren Kimura: Yeah. It has a short season for college in the east. It's just it at the time at the, at least I think it was just in the fall. But I did after the first year of university, I went back to BC for the summer. And I think that summer was the first time that I played with Traffic. I might've been practice roster a little bit the season before as I was training for U 19, but yeah, I played and I was on traffic's summer roster basically right away, because yeah, after school I made all my, all my friends that I played on this U 19 team team were like, the ones from Vancouver at least were back there. I was like, great. Let's get the band back together.
[00:16:53] Tulsa: That's fun.
[00:16:54] Lauren Kimura: Yeah.
[00:16:55] Luisa: What was the transition like going from what sounded like a really rigorous schedule for something like ice hockey to how the schedule or the season felt with Traffic?
[00:17:06] Lauren Kimura: Yeah, it was, I mean, it was really different. I think the biggest transition wasn't necessarily like going from ice hockey to ultimate, but it was just going from like ice hockey to like regular student, regular, like you have the ability to choose what you're going to do tonight, or yeah, like who you're going to hang out with and like the ability to expand your social group.
[00:17:30] Lauren Kimura: And all of these things were actually like quite different for me. Like I just never felt like that flexibility was there before. So I think I went through a period of just learning how to decide what to do with my time. And almost right away, I did everything way too much. I was like running from one group to another group, picked up a bunch of jobs was just, literally just running around campus, doing so much.
[00:17:55] Lauren Kimura: And honestly, like I was almost rejecting sports a little bit. I was like, oh, I, I don't need to just be this or is being really into sports and being an athlete a little bit too unidimensional for me, if you know what I mean. But I think I pretty quickly realized that playing on, playing sports and like a lot of the time, like team sports have such a positive role and are so valuable in my life.
[00:18:22] Lauren Kimura: So I pretty quickly like came back to playing with Traffic, but, I didn't really know at the time that I wanted to play club or like play in a committed way. And it also made it pretty difficult because if I was just back for the summer in BC and then had to come back to Montreal, then I would, you know, it's a lot to ask to have a 19 year old, fly back across the country to a team that they don't practice with if they were even invited to go to USAUs with them.
[00:18:52] Lauren Kimura: That was like a little bit, too much for me at the time. And I, I wasn't looking to get back into such a committed thing, like right away, kind of sounds like. Like a long-term relationship I broke up pretty much was yeah, pretty much.
[00:19:07] Tulsa: Yeah.
[00:19:07] Lauren Kimura: So it took a little bit of time for sure before I felt like I could recommit to a club team, which I guess I've pretty much found that in Sixers now, but, not to romanticize it too much.
[00:19:22] Luisa: I guess let's, yeah let's talk about the 6ixers then. So it was did you just, oh, I guess it would have been, so you attended grad school in Toronto. And so I guess that was the move that, pulled you there and yeah. How did it, how did it start? I guess we have to talk about maybe ultimate in that city beforehand, but.
[00:19:49] Tulsa: And well, and Canadian women's club a little bit too, right? With the Capitals.
[00:19:53] Lauren Kimura: Yes. So I mean, I had known Capitals just from playing against them as Traffic for a few years and kind of, I feel like we had lost a lot to them too. Like when I, um, Yeah, they were, they were a dominant team for a while. And then the year before I had moved, I had other friends and ex teammates from national teams who were playing on Capitals at that time when they existed and were like, sort of around my age.
[00:20:25] Lauren Kimura: So I, I knew a little bit of the dynamics and it used to be, Capitals was a team that was based in Toronto and Ottawa and the style that they were sort of the logistics of the team were from what I understand, like a little bit challenging because they were a team that was based all around Ontario and couldn't, you know, practice in the same place.
[00:20:47] Lauren Kimura: They would have practice weekends, but I think that it had just become like a little bit challenging. So the year that I had moved to Toronto, it was. The transition year basically where some of the players who wanted to continue playing in Toronto wanted to start a Toronto based club team and have Ottawa have its own club team as well, so that they could start building up sort of the local programs.
[00:21:13] Lauren Kimura: So I basically arrived as like that. Basically there were a few captains and players early in the sixth years career that sort of built that up and Jordan Meron who's still very much a huge part of 6ixers was kind of central to that. So yeah, I kind of just arrived and actually, I feel like it took a bit of convincing to play. Cause I, I had moved here and I was like, do you know what I'm here to do my master's program. Like I just spent the summer playing Frisbee. I think I need to move to a new city and maybe not base my entire schedule and social life around the ultimate scene. And that, I think I was so easily convinced out of that.
[00:21:52] Lauren Kimura: I like went to one league game that was down the street from my house. And there were like two cool people there and I was like, okay, fine. I'll play whatever. So yeah, I was pretty lucky to sort of move here. Right when that work to kind of start developing this new team was already underway. And all I had to do was basically show up to tryouts and like hang out with my friends. So yeah. I can talk about what this, maybe I can't talk about what the scene in Toronto was like before I was here so much, but do you have any questions about it?
[00:22:28] Luisa: No, I, I mean, so I remember so I think when the Capitals like really played in USAU was before was sort of before my time of, of starting to play ultimate. And it was like a couple years beforehand that I, I know that BENT had like a thing against the Capitals because in that year, it was a couple of years before I had joined, BENT had earned a bid for the region and Capitals came and stole the bid which stole a bid. It caused a lot of drama. Um,
[00:23:01] Lauren Kimura: She what she said. She She said,
[00:23:03] Lauren Kimura: said
[00:23:04] Luisa: Well, how else would you call it?
[00:23:05] Lauren Kimura: No, it's true. It's
[00:23:07] Tulsa: Uh, beat BENT.
[00:23:09] Luisa: Beat BENT fairly for a bid to Nationals. Um, yeah, so I think they had just kind of like, yeah, there was definitely I think, I think there's the thing with a lot of Northeastern teams with like Canada. But uh, but, um, yeah, so I really, what I knew of the Capitals at the time was that the Capitals drew from a very large region their, their players. And, I guess the, I think the way that I had at least heard that the 6ixers be talked about was that it was really like filled the void that the Capitals left. I don't know if you feel like that was, that's accurate at all.
[00:23:51] Lauren Kimura: I mean, I think so. I just don't want to, I don't want to discredit all the players from like Ottawa who are, I know like a major part of the leadership of Capitals was kind of from Ottawa as well, or had, I don't know if they had moved between Toronto and Ottawa or what, but yeah, I think 6ixers has sort of filled a void in terms of, becoming a very competitive team based in Toronto, not to say Stella and from Ottawa isn't as well. But I think a lot of the folks who were on Capitals who wanted to continue playing club seriously and were based in Toronto, then really refocused and joined 6ixers. But there were also a number of players from Capitals who I think had just reached retirement age. So there were some more veteran players who continued with 6ixers, but yeah, it was a bit of a transition team.
[00:24:46] Tulsa: So 2016 was the first year of 6ixers, right?
[00:24:49] Lauren Kimura: Yes.
[00:24:50] Tulsa: Yeah. And then in, so the club team starts in 2016 and then 2017, you win Canadian Club Nationals and then 2019, you're in the finals of the U.S. Club Nationals. That is really short, very fast growth acceleration.
[00:25:08] Luisa: Meteoric rise.
[00:25:09] Tulsa: Yeah, I am. I'm super curious. Just how did, how did y'all do it? What's the secret?
[00:25:16] Lauren Kimura: I'm about to leak the recipe. No. There isn't really like a secret, I can just tell you what happened with us. Um, But yeah, I think the first year that we, we went to USAUs, that that was the first year. Oh, sorry that we went to regionals, we didn't qualify for Nationals. That was the first year that I think many of us were, playing in the U.S. Series.
[00:25:40] Lauren Kimura: Aside from the, a lot of these folks who played on Capitals before. The team was new, pretty raw totally figuring out what the culture was, what the system was. In the first couple of seasons we had, some coaching changes as well, so there were a lot of, yeah, there were really just kind of trying to find our footing as a team and start building the chemistry. But I think what was really kind of cool about starting a team from its inception and having all this sort of new energy coming in was that there, there were like sort of like these new sources of talent and like a lot of young talent that immediately got a lot of exposure and reps.
[00:26:23] Lauren Kimura: And I mean, I can't, I can't remember so well, like what that 2016 season was like, but it just felt like hectic. It felt, it felt messy. Um, But just really so much fun. And I think we were, you know, solidifying ourselves as like, a really fun social group of people who wanted to come back and play together again.
[00:26:48] Lauren Kimura: And then, I'm probably glazing over all this important things that happened in the first season, but it was just exciting, you know, like people were feeling refreshed, like that this was a program that maybe they could start dedicating energy towards. At least I felt that way and I was almost quitting the year before somehow. So, yeah. I think people were excited by that. And then the next season again, we, we kind of had built ourselves up. I think we went to Nationals, tied a bunch of games that like lost on universe or something.
[00:27:24] Lauren Kimura: But at least for me, that was the first time I was at U.S. Nationals. That was the first time for a lot of other players as well. And yeah, I mean, I think a big trend with 6ixers is that we have all this really diverse talent, a lot of young people who come in and immediately their skills are utilized. They will, if they are executing or buying into the system that we have, then they'll be played to those strengths.
[00:27:50] Lauren Kimura: And we've been able to sort of, build up a culture. That's just sort of based around really buying into this system that our coaches and our leadership have developed. And at some point sort of within development over the last few seasons, it had kind of, for me, at least switched from being fun and social to like being this very systematic and like performance driven team.
[00:28:14] Lauren Kimura: And it was really interesting to just see like players that I started playing with, or that maybe like were pretty fresh when we started playing together on 6ixers just become these completely solid units. And just like the development of each individual player over the last few years has been incredible to watch to the point where it's just like, I'll, I feel like it's, you know, when, Brute Squad talks about Brute Squad scrimmaging, each other, and it's like, you're overseas, your D line.
[00:28:44] Lauren Kimura: And you're just like, these are the best players. Like these are the, I can't get open. I can't do anything. I'm going to get deed. that's just how it feels at practice for us, or at least for me now I'm like, okay. O line. We're not, it's always a struggle, but it's been a lot of work from our coaches and our leadership and every person who sort of continued to commit themselves more and more each year and feeling like we were all doing that together, like on the same timeline has made it just feel like this really, I don't know, meaningful thing that we've all like built up together and that commitment has obviously been fruitful in ways. Yeah,
[00:29:26] Tulsa: Yeah, I think that's a really, can be a really challenging thing for club teams to do is to bring in younger players and develop them into like great players. I don't know. I think, and especially, it sounds like it's a, it's not a one person thing. It's, you're able to do it with, everyone you're bringing in and I, I think that's really difficult to do.
[00:29:50] Lauren Kimura: I think so too. I would say one big thing. think at least a really huge thing has been Carla Difilippo our, our coach has been basically the developer of juniors ultimate in Toronto and around Canada. She's coached all these women's junior national teams. She coached me back in 2013 and clocked me and was like, you we, we need to play together.
[00:30:13] Lauren Kimura: She's just, very on top of all the talent that's coming up and gets really excited about them in this way that makes everybody else super excited. And she's pulled some of these players into Toronto and pulled them onto our team and making space for junior players or not junior players, but you know, younger players coming right out of juniors to get high-level reps right away. You develop so much quicker instead of you may be having to grind it out on like the D line for years or something like that.
[00:30:48] Lauren Kimura: It's just kind of yeah, she she's really pulled sort of an excellent feeder system for the 6ixers, which is, I think as much as anybody had ever hoped for, for us. I would also say that the roles of, you know, not necessarily the younger players some of the veterans or some of the older players, like such as myself, being very dynamic in the types of roles that you play over the years, like, that's huge as well.
[00:31:15] Lauren Kimura: Yeah, some of our players say Sarah Bobak for instance, this is just really top of mine because she started out on the 6ixers O-line carried forward on the O-line all the way until I think the 29 season, or 2019 season, and then flipped over and completely crushed it.
[00:31:32] Lauren Kimura: Like it was just, you know, like what the team needed. We needed veteran status, like baller on the D line to come and to come and work it out. But there's, yeah, there's just been lots of sort of dynamic roles for different players. That has, you know, allowed people to continue to develop in these different ways and make room for other people to develop as well.
[00:31:55] Luisa: Share the Air will be right back, but first here's a quick word from our sponsors.
[00:31:59] Tulsa: Share the Air is sponsored by the National Ultimate Training Camp. Located in Western Massachusetts. NUTC is the longest running ultimate sleepover camp in the country. It has also gone international, hosting camps and teaching clinics all over the globe. With the most talented coaches in the world, NUTC is teaching ultimate for the next generation. Learn from the best at NUTC.
[00:32:21] Luisa: Share the Air is also sponsored by VC ultimate. VC has been producing custom uniforms and performance apparel since 1998. A company that proudly puts values and community before profit, VC is the world's best source for quality design and all your ultimate needs. You can support VC and rep Share the Air jerseys by checking out our team store at vcultimate.com.
[00:32:43] Tulsa: It sounds like Carla has had a pretty big role in shaping the 6ixers. Can you maybe talk a little bit more about when she came in and what impact she's had?
[00:32:53] Lauren Kimura: Yeah, for sure. So I will say though that the the first coach for 6ixers was Katelyn Lovat, who also went by "Hoodie" and played on Capitals for a really long time. Carla and Hoodie were teammates on Capitals. And in fact, I think that they had joint coached me together in 2013 on like a junior team. So they were all always connected. I think it was probably a matter of time before Carla, like really got really got in, but Hoodie coached, I believe the first two seasons. And then, it was actually Carla's partner Evan Philips, or Dime as we call him, who was a primary coach sort of after Hoodie had transitioned out and moved to Montreal and passed off to dime. And I think that seasoned Carla was probably coaching one of her various junior national teams and herself and her partner are very embedded in the Junior's ultimate program or system and Toronto. So they kind of coach the boys and the, and the girls sides around here, they're pretty much a coaching power family. So Dime had coached us for a season and Carla sort of assisted. And then I will say that some of our like really dramatic, stressful seasons when we were really getting some of our growing pains out, Dime was there for that. And he really pushed us through. And it's interesting cause he was a very offensive focused coach. He was an offensive handler. And Carla is much more of a de-focus and very systematic with how she likes to practice and how she likes to train a team. So we had a little bit of almost the opposite before with Dime. At least for me, like having a coach who was like, an offensive handler to just sort of come and be creative and, come up with all these plays and sort of bring all this offensive knowledge that was really, really helpful. But all of these coaches really built up different aspects of the team and brought super important perspectives and teachings just about how our team really would work well together. And I kind of feel like it's a little bit culminated with Carla having come onto our team after we had a few seasons of trying things out and working through some stuff and players sort of developing in different ways. And then she came in and along with the rest of our leadership set the system for us to develop all together on the same sort of organized path. So yeah. And sorry, I should also say in 2019 Carla's co coach was Alena Papayanis. those two had coached together at junior national team that I think won Worlds. Basically we had all these coaches with national level coaching experience uh, for women's. So we've just had extreme luck with who we've had oversee or our team. Yeah. She definitely continues to be like a huge presence. She's one of the coaches for the World Games team for next year. And that's been really huge. We've all developed as players she's developed as coaches. And we intersect on six years, so yeah.
[00:36:02] Luisa: With such a short timeframe, 6ixers started in 2016, you have had enormous amounts of success so early in the club's history it sounds like a lot of things really fell into place quite well in terms of folks that were in the area at the right time.
[00:36:21] Luisa: Incredibly talented and knowledgeable personnel being there and wanting to commit to the growth of the 6ixers. Just, I think it, it really seems like a lot of things went really well and the successes is, has definitely shown in previous conversations that we've had with you, it seemed like you sort of express other feelings, I guess, about, the 6ixers and, and these past few years. Do you want to talk about that at all? Or, or sort of get into that.
[00:36:49] Lauren Kimura: Sure. Yeah. I mean, again, I'll say that this isn't really a fully formed thought, but there's definitely like this core like narrative about the 6ixers or like just within the context of everything in ultimate right now, you know, we're sort of still relatively new, like you said, had a meteoric rise.
[00:37:06] Lauren Kimura: I think I've just kind of noticed how are the focus. Developing as a club team and really sort of focusing on getting our culture together and you know, choosing what our goals are going to be and being a little bit focused on these pretty performance-based goals have been, it's a piece of our team that is really important. And probably, I mean, I don't want to speak for all Canadian club teams, but there is like a little bit of a, lower volume of conversation about gender equity and racial equity and the ways in which that intersects in Canadian ultimate.
[00:37:43] Lauren Kimura: And I'm not really super sure where, why that is to be honest. Part of it might be that without having, a POL team or sort of I like to be in a city where that, that was like a real viable option. Then we haven't had me, you know, some more of the community-based conversations that come up with that and then have maybe less so been involved in sort of that conversation at a national lens.
[00:38:11] Luisa: Yeah I'm kind of interested in again, in the fact that the 6ixers are so young and you've done a lot of team development and culture creating super early on and obviously it's found success. I think that's a really key piece is that, there weren't really many years of sort of fumbling around and figuring it out and what goals do we want to sort of aspire to? Those were formed, it seems like fairly early on. And then of course you had to do the work to get there. And I feel like a lot of teams that are having these sorts of conversations around either gender equity, racial equity, class equity, anything like that. I feel like a lot of those conversations for teams that, that I'm observing it's happening in the context of a well-established team. I'm thinking of how even teams that I've been on have had to do a lot of breaking of old habits and where that's maybe different from a team who is pretty new and has done a lot of this like sort of culture work very, very recently, as opposed to having it kind of set for them and having to come into a team as I feel like I've done, I feel like I've come into teams that very much already had an identity.
[00:39:21] Luisa: And so I think a lot of the work is, kind of being done in a way that is asking teams to sort of break old habits. And I, I don't know what the effect of that is. And maybe it's, maybe the way to think about it is we just have to throw everything out and start over and I'm not really sure. So yeah, I also don't know if I have a question in here, but I think just that idea that, yeah, I wonder what the difference is for like a younger team that is a little bit more new to developing its culture versus teams that have a very, you know, very solid identities.
[00:39:57] Luisa: Yeah, I wonder if there's a way to. Be able to get in there and break up that identity anyway and make it to something that feels more inclusive or just different.
[00:40:07] Lauren Kimura: Yeah, I was just gonna say that I think that is really interesting and it just reminded me of I think maybe in our second or third season, we had started on this conversation of gender equity and the viability of a professional Toronto or Ontario based women's in non binary trans team. And as we started to discuss and like try to have this conversation amongst the different club teams, I think we had just really seen that we were quickly becoming stretched thin. And Tulsa, I was listening to the podcast that you did with Doodle recently about this committee structure.
[00:40:45] Lauren Kimura: And I think during this time it was in the off season between maybe our third season of existence and we had also explored sort of a committee style situation. I think we were still, you know, it wasn't like a flat structure where all the power was diffused, but I think the idea was the same, just that there's a lot of work to be done for a team. And it's, it's a really great way to have buy-in from all different members of the team in ways that interest them and suit their skillset or their passion or what they really want to be bringing in. And I think we had tried this out, sort of briefly and it might've fallen apart a little bit because it just felt like we hadn't really established the core this is who we are, this is what we want. This is what our goals are. But you know, the load on the leadership of a team to kind of carry forward all those different priorities at the same time. It's so challenging. So I think I'm just kind of agreeing with Luisa of the idea that like having like a preestablished team where those things are sort of solidified might give you a little bit of extra bandwidth to focus on other aspects. But it's also not necessarily, I don't think it's an excuse either. Like I think it just takes leadership and buy-in from different members of the team and figuring out if you're all on the same page about working on a thing. And I think I was, I was probably the one who wanted to do the committees cause I'm like a government worker who's into community and yeah, they fell apart for whatever reason. I'd probably too many meetings, too many. Check-ins too many circle backs, but um, yeah. Yeah.
[00:42:22] Lauren Kimura: I guess I'm interested in just how the diffusion of different sort of tasks among different team members might make it a little bit more feasible to accomplish a lot. Just maybe not like the one thing altogether.
[00:42:36] Tulsa: Yeah. I don't know if I have a hundred percent answer to your question, but it was making me think, I think it was interesting the way that we approached tasks with the committees was it felt like almost we were approaching the same tasks and the same goals, just with more people from different angles. I think we came in with a goal of wanting to do more equity work and wanting to hold that along with all of the time we put into practice and saying like, we have this goal of winning nationals and we have this goal of creating a culture that's welcoming and inclusive and like taking on this equity work. And we're going to put time into both. I think when those two came head to head, we kind of defaulted back in into our previous ways of leaning into the drive to practice. And I think that if we're thinking, you know, this pie chart of time in the past, most of it has gone to practice time thinking about giving up some of that time for culture equity stuff I think was really challenging to do so. . Kind of tying this back. I wonder what it would be like to start a team, a fresh team and say, we have this goal of competition and we have this goal of equity anti-oppression whatever it is and how, how you might kind of take those on in tandem.
[00:43:56] Luisa: we, I mean, this was like a little bit of what we talked with Hana Kawai and Ari Lozano about. I think that Hana Kawai is in working with others to sort of start the Seattle END team, I think kind of had that sort of model in mind of they want to play high level ultimate and they want to make it financially accessible to folks from, from their area.
[00:44:16] Luisa: And that's like, I think been sort of the the main founding principle of that team. So I just think
[00:44:23] Tulsa: Yeah, and I would say Gridlock is also, trying to uphold those values of the PUL and Gridlock and try and do things alongside the competition. And I think it's just, it has felt challenging for me and in those teams too not feel like they're at odds with each other. Cause they shouldn't be. But sometimes they feel that way just in terms of like time and resources.
[00:44:47] Lauren Kimura: Well, this all resonates a lot with our season of committees that fizzled, but it's also like, this is kind of what. Yeah, I don't know. This is, I've just kind of noticed that there's like a pace and there's initiatives that are going on in these different cities. And at least personally, like, I hope that our, our team starts to focus on that a little bit more or whatever our priority as a, as a team and representing Toronto and the surrounding area might be that we have a little bit more time and focus to contribute into other aspects of the sport.
[00:45:23] Lauren Kimura: But yeah, it, it's really interesting though, just to hear about what other teams are up to and the different structures that they have.
[00:45:29] Luisa: So, Lauren, what are some things that you would like the 6ixers to build into their processes and culture that, maybe aren't there and also, do you feel the 6ixers are ready and down to start having those conversations?
[00:45:47] Lauren Kimura: That's a good question. For me, I feel like, financial inclusion and economic opportunity is a huge part of playing ultimate, any kind of competitive traveling team in general. That obviously intersects with a lot of other aspects of identity and power structures. But I just feel like such a tangible way to help include and reach more people is to introduce some sort of financial accessibility aspect.
[00:46:16] Lauren Kimura: And it's very tangible, you know, like it's just something that people understand. Everybody has to pay the money. And some groups face more barriers than others. So... I've always kind of been interested in that, not just for Frisbee, but for any sort of competitive sports. The other piece is and I'm not really sure like what the answer is here, I know that there's been some really interesting programs or like initiatives around Toronto, just with racial and indigenous inclusion. There was a program over the last few years called Reach Up, which was a program that was funded by cancer care Ontario. And it was an ultimate Frisbee education, training camp sort of situation that would go to indigenous communities and also teach about healthy use of tobacco.
[00:46:59] Lauren Kimura: But it also basically shopped around Frisbee and would spread, help spread the sport and communities that wouldn't normally have access to organized sports or, or certainly not ultimate.
[00:47:10] Lauren Kimura: So that was, I don't know, there's different initiatives that are happening around Toronto, around Ontario. There's a lot of potential for partnership with our top teams, not just 6ixers, also probably GOAT and Union and our other sort of top touring teams.
[00:47:26] Lauren Kimura: But I think that's also one of the challenges that we had. I'm thinking this was like a couple years ago. Cause there was sort of a pause or because COVID, and speaking as a community about what sorts of initiatives in like the Toronto ultimate scene, teams should be supporting or what kind of conversations we should be having. It's sometimes difficult to feel like your team is having this conversation, but it also should be like in collaboration with the rest of the community and everybody should sort of be on the same page about that and having leadership in those conversations is something that we look for. And I think historically, honestly, VC Ultimate has been because they're centered in Toronto and Adriana does a lot of that work. She's actually hosted a lot of these conversations for us. There's a momentum there. I think that probably needs to be picked back up to kind of as a community to find what sort of social and equity goals we want to focus on.
[00:48:19] Lauren Kimura: And then at least that would be the approach that I would want to take rather than... well of course, having your own team identity and your goals as a team is very important, but if you can work towards something that has, sort of co-developed cobalt into goals as a community, and then everybody sort of works towards those things together, that's much more sustainable and probably going to lead to better outcomes and buy-in and just, yeah. So, I mean, eventually I feel like I, hope that those sorts of things can pick up again.
[00:48:52] Luisa: Yeah, I think that's a much better way to sort of view that is that we want these conversations to be happening at a community level, not just sort of team level, right? Like I think those team conversations are, I don't maybe care as much what the men's team in my city needs to do in order to get the Nationals. But I do care what equity conversations they're maybe having, and if we have it at a community-wide level, that makes a lot more sense than just baking it into like the teams year long seasonal goal.
[00:49:22] Lauren Kimura: But it's also like, so much harder,
[00:49:27] Luisa: Yes, definitely.
[00:49:28] Lauren Kimura: This probably relates to like, yeah. And that's why the follow through is probably a lot weaker. Yes, of course we should really just have this conversation with our team and start there. So we probably will, but that's who I am. I am, I don't know if I said this but my job at the city is I want like on the strategic policy team for the shelter and housing division for the city of Toronto and I'm a very systematic thinker most of the time. Some of my mind always goes there into community impact and things like that. And then the actual implementation of how it gets done. More of a weak spot for me.
[00:50:08] Luisa: And now Share the Air will take a break to talk about today's Teachable Moment brought to you by our sponsor, the Centre for Applied Neuroscience.
[00:50:21] Luisa: We asked our audience what neuroscience you wanted to explained and we have Dr. Wintink here to answer your questions.
[00:50:27] Tulsa: Today's question is why do people get more nervous before a big game than a normal game?
[00:50:32] Mandy: So the short answer is that the big game has so many more factors at play. And so it really is using more brain resources and it's also using more of the controlled resources.
[00:50:47] Mandy: So the brain is hyper-focused on this event when it's a regular game league game or something that's not important, then our arousal system basically hasn't been activated. So it's not you know, there's no, I keep using the arousal system as a way of talking about. The threat system, because it really is a threat system.
[00:51:06] Mandy: So the arousal system is a stress response, which is activated when we feel a threat. Traditionally, this has to do with threats out nature, right threats to our physical life. But we also, because of the way our brain is developed as humans, we also get threats to our ego, to our sense of identity ourself, and all of those have the same kind of impact as a threat to our physical.
[00:51:30] Mandy: Just because of the way that our brain conceptualizes it. So once it's received this as a threat, it activates us arousal system. So playing in a big game is a threat to our ego. It's a threat to our identity because we care about it. And so as soon as we walk into that stadium or we see the crowd, we get these messages of this inadvertent threat to us.
[00:51:52] Mandy: And so our, our arousal system starts to activate. So that's the plain simple answer. Why those feel more intense and why that game is just feels differently. But working with that is also what high-performance athletes are able to do. So, that arousal, isn't a bad thing at moderate levels.
[00:52:11] Mandy: So we need a little bit of that arousal, right? We need to be up for that big game and feel that because our performance is better. If it's too much though, then it starts to drop off. And then that's when we start to lose physical performance. Mentally, we can't think as well we get angry and irritated.
[00:52:28] Mandy: So a whole bunch of cognitive, emotional and physical negative changes happen when we have too much of that. You can also imagine this with players. You know, we always talk about having experience in beginning. So that experience allows us to work with that peak level of arousal and not fall to the other side.
[00:52:47] Mandy: So there's, there's a strategy around working with that arousal. So it it's good. And it has that flip side, if we don't know how to work with that arousal. So we talk about arousal management a lot in sport psychology, and that's what we're talking about there.
[00:53:02] Luisa: Thanks to our sponsor, Dr. Mandy Wintink and the Centre for Applied Neuroscience for this teachable moment, head to www.knowyourbrain.ca and see what courses they have to teach you more about your brain. If you mentioned that you heard about them here, you'll get a 5% discount off course fees. And they'll also donate 5% back to Share the Air.
[00:53:20] Luisa: Okay. So since you brought it up, this is a great segue to talk about your job. And if you could explain the work that you do for the city of Toronto?
[00:53:36] Lauren Kimura: Sure. So I work as a policy development officer, whatever that is. But I work in the shelter and housing division for the city. And I'm on the strategic policy and service planning team. I basically started with this division right at the beginning of the pandemic. So March 2020, and prior to that, worked in the indigenous affairs office when I first started at the city, which was an incredible sort of entry point into municipal government. And it was on this small team that was all indigenous and really wanted to disrupt how they worked as a group, which was really interesting for me. And then after that placement, I started working with shelter and housing in my current role. About two weeks in the pandemic hit, everybody was sent home and one of the responses of our shelter system during the pandemic was... because there's the existing shelter system is largely congregate facilities, then to support physical distancing, we quickly had to open up a number of temporary sites so that people could be distanced.
[00:54:40] Lauren Kimura: And so at first they had closed down all these city facilities like community centers, parks, buildings, et cetera that weren't able to be used because of COVID. And then they reopened them as temporary shelters and redeployed city staff, from all over the corporation, not just from shelter and housing, basically desk workers to go and work at these shelters. So this was the first three months of my role, which typically would be in a city building at a desk or writing policy. Then I got to immediately work frontline, which was really quite the best experience I could have had, as somebody who's developing the policy is responsible for the quality of the system and the types of services that are available. Just immediately having the ground perspective in a crisis of this is really how operationally this is all working was a pretty important perspective for me to bring back and then...
[00:55:36] Lauren Kimura: Yeah, I was pulled back to my primary role after a few months. Yeah, very, very challenging time to be beginning work during COVID for this type of service. But you know, I've worked on all sorts of different policy for us. Like at a strategic level, like our five-year plans, tying back sort of our divisional goals to like whatever the city's goals are or sort of priority setting on a high level. And then, and then also my team, we kind of act as like internal consultants around our division, so different programs that we operate or services that need to be upgraded or evaluated or just all sorts of different tasks, we'll basically just be pulled into like different programs and teams to come help solve a problem or create a council report or something like that. A lot of the time I'm just holding a pen and creating presentations and stuff like that. But yeah, now it's basically been a year and 10 months since I've been in this role. It feels like years. It feels
[00:56:34] Tulsa: Yeah. What a time to start.
[00:56:37] Lauren Kimura: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:56:38] Tulsa: In that first chunk of time, when you were on the ground, I think that's a really interesting piece that you, got to see in person, what services are like, and then to go back to more of the behind the desk, create the policy. What kinds of things did you pull from that experience or learn or see?
[00:56:58] Lauren Kimura: Yeah, so, I mean, when I was on the ground, I was helping operate these sites. So I'm not a trained housing worker. So I wasn't exactly providing housing services to people in shelters, but just the basic functioning of a site and doing intakes and interacting with all the clients and also, it was in a community center so we were trying to sort of make sure that this was all up to shelter standards and that COVID protocols or like whatever COVID guidance was also being adhered to and making sure that all like the public health guidance was being adhered to. But I mean, basically just actually having the human interaction of people who are like largely in crisis receiving this, these services, is.
[00:57:40] Lauren Kimura: It was just very, I guess it was it was a little bit shocking to see... well, first of all, like at the beginning of COVID, nobody knew what was going on. The people who were working there didn't know what was going on, actually sometimes even more so, the people who were working there were freaking out more than the clients of the shelter, who frankly constantly are dealing with instability and a lot of challenges with services and a lack of humility when they're receiving services and sometimes a lack of care. And that's, you know, based on the fact that frontline workers are very burnt out. They're not necessarily well-resourced either to be able to do their jobs in a way that they can bring a lot of care and humility, too. But it's extremely stressful and traumatizing environment for people who have obviously been through some sort of crisis or trauma, and now are in a setting surrounded by other people who are also going through that. It's really quite a lot. And so I mean, one of the responses too was that the city rented out or we leased a lot of hotels which provided a lot of the time, private rooms, private settings, and a lot of amenities that typical base shelter system didn't have to begin with.
[00:58:57] Lauren Kimura: And what's really interesting now is two years into leasing all these hotels, that funding, it's federal funding, that's COVID related, that's kind of leasing them out. That funding is all going to end soon. And one of the projects that I'm working on right now is our quote unquote COVID transition and relocation team. So yeah, when these leases end, how are we planning to accommodate for basically the growth of the number of people experiencing homelessness who are now in these hotels while still balancing whatever the physical distancing requirements are going to be. It's basically an impossible problem, but
[00:59:34] Tulsa: Because we're still not done with COVID. We're still in it, even though people think we are.
[00:59:40] Lauren Kimura: Yeah. And like the scrutiny, or like just the magnification of the housing crisis in every major city, obviously through COVID has really magnified the issue in Toronto. And I know for a lot of other cities, the services that are being offered to folks, whether they're in shelter or staying outside or in encampments, it's all just extremely important. It's very important. It's all a crisis. So yeah, that's kind of the team that I work on. And we kind of respond to these emerging issues as they come up, but I think working for the municipal government or being a public servant to get to work on these types of issues is so, so important, obviously, like these are extremely important human services and it's also it's a constant challenge. You're also like working so close to community. You know, I I know people who receive the services. I have been on an advocate side, I've been on a community sort of worker or a researcher side. And now there's all these different sort of like roles to play to solve these issues. And yeah, so far it's been, very interesting. I feel like saying interesting to describe this kind of work isn't really the best word, but I do just find it very interesting.
[01:01:01] Luisa: So we've talked a bit about your history and your career. What is next for you? Either in ultimate, in work, whatever feels good to talk about.
[01:01:09] Lauren Kimura: I think for ultimate... do you know what? I think I'm figuring it out in all aspects in work and in ultimate, but I was thinking about the different periods that I've almost stopped playing ultimate. And because I had this experience of saying no to a sport, I just feel like it's within my power. And like, I need to constantly assess each year how much I'm getting and giving to the sport and whether I should continue playing, like at the level that I'm playing at. And I'm just the type of person that really needs to know. I need to know before I commit to a season so that I can just fully, commit. And I think that these past couple of years have changed some things, even on the 2019 run that we had, I was like, oh my God, this is too much like, overwhelmed knew that we were going to go to Worlds the next year. And then it was going to be like a Worlds games tryout year, and then it was just not going to stop.
[01:02:04] Tulsa: It just keeps going. I know.
[01:02:05] Lauren Kimura: I was like, oh my God. So in a way having that break, a forced break was sort of helpful to really reassess and recommit, if you will. And I think that, yeah, I've just thought about now, like in my mind, I've as a player sort of transitioned into, like, I am one of the veterans, I'm one of the older players, there's different pieces that I can bring to the team that aren't necessarily based on my playing skillset that I really want to sort of focus on a little bit more in the next few years. And I also got really pumped up just like playing with all my teammates again and we had this very short truncated season in the fall, obviously didn't play in us, but we just had a little tournament basically in Ottawa. And I just kind of remembered that there's all these players that I don't want to miss seeing get great. I wanna like be playing with them when they become the best players in the world. I dunno. I just want to like have a role in it. And I'm excited to, continue sort of contributing to our team in that way.
[01:03:10] Lauren Kimura: And then, yeah, we also have club Worlds next year, so that'll be very exciting once again. And we have the World Games team. We have a sort of extended roster that was chosen in advance of World Games next July. And that sort of process for developing into like the final team is going to begin in February. So looking towards that in some way.
[01:03:36] Lauren Kimura: I'm training, but I also had an ACL injury at World Games tryouts, which I told you too about at a previous conversation. And now it's the first time I'm talking about it here, but yeah, I had surgery like a month ago, which is kind of nuts, it's a lot, how much has happened in like a really short period of time, but yeah, basically I've been obsessed with physio and rehabbing and training whatever else I can, every other part of my body physically possible. So yeah, the injuries are just kind of part and parcel. And obviously like, I mean, I didn't really talk about this, but in 2019 I had as, you know, probably an injury in the semi-final that just pulled me out of being able to play in the final. And that was like a grade two MCL sprain that I sustained catching the pull of all things. My favorite thing to do by the way, love catching the
[01:04:27] Tulsa: We're going to have to talk more about that. Cause I, I need a little
[01:04:29] Luisa: I have so much fear around it. That was the worst part about being put on the O-line this year was being told that I had to now catch the pull
[01:04:36] Tulsa: In mixed it's also, I feel like extra
[01:04:39] Luisa: Terrifying, terrifying. I think Izzy started calling me to be the handler that got the disc centered to, because he knew that I had such a fear catching the pull.
[01:04:49] Tulsa: We should do a whole, a whole bonus episode just about catching the pull, I in for that.
[01:04:55] Lauren Kimura: Yes, That would be, yeah. Yeah, no, I love catching the pull, but also share the fear of catching and mixed ultimate. I did it at the World Games tryouts for like the first time in so long. I hadn't played mixed at a really competitive level. I was like, what is this windy dagger? Like double hammer, like thing. I'm just jumping right in there. But, I was just going to say that I, have gone through so much of my career without having any serious injuries. And as soon as like, something little happen. I'm just, I just will take it so seriously. And obviously when you only have, well, I don't know how many more years in my competitive career you have. I have, but if you don't deal with the injury right when it happens and take as many precautions as you can, I'm sure it can just kind of become a snowball of
[01:05:47] Tulsa: That's
[01:05:47] Lauren Kimura: things. So, so yeah, I'm just kind of working through my current injury recovery and hopefully I'm not going to be pushing it before it's ready, but...
[01:05:59] Luisa: Yeah.
[01:05:59] Tulsa: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I really love that piece about checking in each year and reassessing if it's something you want to keep committing to, I feel like it's easy to kind of get caught up in. You just keep doing it, keep doing it without really making the conscious decision of wanting to invest your time and energy and thinking about how much you're giving and how much you're getting back. I think that's wise.
[01:06:22] Lauren Kimura: We burn out a lot, trying to do that. So
[01:06:25] Tulsa: Yup.
[01:06:26] Tulsa: So we have a game that's a new in season two, and it's called Frisbee Feud based off of Family Feud, the TV show. So we have surveyed our audience these three questions and you have to guess the top answers from our listenership, what they think the top answer. So we'll ask the question and then you get three guesses to guess the top answers. Does that sound good?
[01:06:54] Tulsa: I forget what we've been doing.
[01:06:55] Tulsa: I don't know.
[01:06:56] Tulsa: Okay. The rules aren't hard.
[01:06:59] Tulsa: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. first question. Name a TV show that ultimate players watch.
[01:07:07] Lauren Kimura: Um, something that's okay. I'm trying to think sports theme. I can only think of Friday Night Lights for some reason.
[01:07:19] Tulsa: Oh, that's a good one.
[01:07:22] Lauren Kimura: okay. Succession, just because it's feels like the most popular show.
[01:07:26] Luisa: Right now. Yeah.
[01:07:28] Tulsa: I haven't even heard of that. Am I behind the times? Okay. I'm going to write it down, but No,
[01:07:36] Tulsa: not on the list.
[01:07:38] Luisa: Yeah.
[01:07:39] Lauren Kimura: Shoot. Sports sports, sports, sports, ultimate players. This is
[01:07:47] Tulsa: I'll give you a clue in the top three there's one sports show and it's I don't want to give too
[01:07:56] Tulsa: much
[01:07:57] Lauren Kimura: me the sport is now, right help.
[01:08:00] Tulsa: Yeah, sure. It's soccer slash football.
[01:08:03] Lauren Kimura: my
[01:08:05] Tulsa: Do you have Apple TV in Canada?
[01:08:06] Lauren Kimura: No. Yeah, we do. Have we have Apple TV? We have, I just don't have Apple TV.
[01:08:12] Tulsa: Okay. Yeah.
[01:08:13] Luisa: Yeah.
[01:08:14] Tulsa: It's on Apple TV.
[01:08:15] Luisa: It's a very, it's a one, one platform show.
[01:08:19] Lauren Kimura: Oh really? Okay. Well then I don't know. It
[01:08:22] Tulsa: Okay. Well, I'll tell you because you should watch it. It's Ted Lasso. Have you heard about it?
[01:08:27] Lauren Kimura: Oh, I have heard of that.
[01:08:29] Lauren Kimura: I didn't know that that was a sport show though.
[01:08:32] Luisa: Yeah.
[01:08:33] Lauren Kimura: Okay.
[01:08:33] Tulsa: You should watch it. Then when we come back for a bonus episode, you
[01:08:36] Luisa: Talk about it.
[01:08:37] Tulsa: How much you love it.
[01:08:38] Lauren Kimura: You. Thank you. Thank you.
[01:08:40] Luisa: Just get your hands on some apple TV.
[01:08:43] Lauren Kimura: Are you just going to give me the rest of the answers I feel like I'm not going to get it.
[01:08:48] Tulsa: I know this is a hard one. The top answer is a long I don't even know. I haven't seen much of it. I feel like people either love it or they don't love it. It's got Steve Carell in it.
[01:08:59] Lauren Kimura: Oh, The Office,
[01:09:01] Luisa: Yeah.
[01:09:03] Lauren Kimura: The Office is one of the top shows. Oh my God.
[01:09:05] Luisa: Yeah.
[01:09:06] Tulsa: The top answer.
[01:09:07] Lauren Kimura: Interesting.
[01:09:08] Luisa: At least from our listeners.
[01:09:10] Tulsa: Yeah. Right. You have to re remember it's Share the Air listeners.
[01:09:14] Lauren Kimura: Right.
[01:09:15] Luisa: or at least
[01:09:15] Tulsa: you want to clue for the second one?
[01:09:17] Lauren Kimura: Sorry. What'd you ask, Do. You
[01:09:18] Tulsa: Do you want, do you want a clue for the second or the third top
[01:09:21] Lauren Kimura: Yeah, I need, I
[01:09:22] Tulsa: Okay. It's a reality TV show.
[01:09:25] Luisa: Do they even have this in Canada?
[01:09:26] Tulsa: They give out roses.
[01:09:28] Lauren Kimura: Oh, The Bachelor
[01:09:30] Luisa: Yeah.
[01:09:31] Lauren Kimura: To The Bachelor, The Bachelorette I was going to, I was going to get Survivor as well. Cause sneakily like so many people watched Survivor still.
[01:09:39] Tulsa: I've heard people talk about it. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:09:43] Lauren Kimura: The tether that I have to reality TV is basically like the 6ixers chat. Um, 6ixers chat is like, it's prolific. There's lots of culture content that's coming out of there. It's funny, how many different directions it goes each day?
[01:10:01] Lauren Kimura: Anyways?
[01:10:02] Tulsa: I'm going to jump over to the spreadsheet for the next one. Cause I feel like it might be slightly easier.
[01:10:07] Luisa: so, Okay. Okay. Let me, let me pull it up. You don't want to do the other one here.
[01:10:12] Tulsa: Yeah. Maybe we
[01:10:14] Lauren Kimura: Too poorly.
[01:10:15] Luisa: Let me no, no, it's
[01:10:18] Luisa: not fair. We're asking you we asked you about a bunch of American media. That's not
[01:10:22] Tulsa: It was a bad question. Okay. Name something. You'd find in an ultimate player's car.
[01:10:28] Lauren Kimura: Patagonia black hole bag.
[01:10:31] Tulsa: That should be on there, but it's not.
[01:10:33] Luisa: be on here. I think it's one, it's one of those things that must be so obvious that nobody wrote
[01:10:37] Luisa: it should a hundred percent be on that list.
[01:10:41] Lauren Kimura: Ultimate players car, Nalgene water bottle again? No. Are you serious?
[01:10:49] Tulsa: Water
[01:10:50] Luisa: of the
[01:10:50] Tulsa: on there. Water is on there. Yeah.
[01:10:53] Lauren Kimura: water, water, water. Okay. I don't know. Hats, a buff, sunscreen, sun paraphernalia.
[01:11:02] Tulsa: Sun Hoodie.
[01:11:04] Lauren Kimura: Okay. I don't get more guesses. Do I, then that I just said a bunch of stuff.
[01:11:09] Luisa: We've been very casual
[01:11:11] Tulsa: Yeah.
[01:11:12] Lauren Kimura: Um, like a dog.
[01:11:16] Luisa: Someone wrote bad smells.
[01:11:19] Lauren Kimura: Frisbees.
[01:11:20] Tulsa: Yeah. Somebody wrote chaos. Yeah. Frisbee a Frisbee is the top answer.
[01:11:26] Lauren Kimura: Right. Okay. Funny enough though. Like how many Frisbees do you do you two have?
[01:11:32] Tulsa: Any, in my car.
[01:11:34] Lauren Kimura: I have zero.
[01:11:35] Luisa: Bag
[01:11:36] Tulsa: I always show up with no Frisbees and I moved Chapo. Someone else, like
[01:11:42] Lauren Kimura: Frisbees that I have, or like the like ones that are when you win a tournament and it's like a weird color and like
[01:11:49] Tulsa: The full
[01:11:50] Lauren Kimura: The full print, like you can actually play with it or you can, but people are gonna be like, what
[01:11:55] Tulsa: Yeah,
[01:11:57] Lauren Kimura: Those are the only Frisbees that actually reside in my house.
[01:12:00] Tulsa: Yeah. Yeah. Cause you, when somebody thinks.
[01:12:04] Lauren Kimura: No, not even, just because you tend to lose other Frisbee you.
[01:12:10] Lauren Kimura: have
[01:12:10] Tulsa: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. That's true.
[01:12:13] Luisa: All right. Your final question in college? What do ultimate Frisbee players major in?
[01:12:19] Lauren Kimura: Kin. Kinesiology.
[01:12:22] Tulsa: Yep. That's on there. Yup.
[01:12:24] Lauren Kimura: Uh, oh, interesting. I don't like further than that, I'm not super sure. Phys ed. Um, I don't know.
[01:12:33] Luisa: It's the most defeated you've looked all evening.
[01:12:36] Lauren Kimura: I'm really not passing this.
[01:12:38] Tulsa: Here's an easier question.
[01:12:41] Lauren Kimura: There's not enough college players for there to be like a archetype.
[01:12:45] Tulsa: Um,
[01:12:46] Lauren Kimura: for me that, that I know, but, Uh, I don't know. Arts. Liberal arts.
[01:12:56] Luisa: Kind of the opposite actually were the answers.
[01:13:00] Lauren Kimura: What are they? That's like
[01:13:02] Luisa: So just a lot of engineering a lot
[01:13:05] Lauren Kimura: Okay. Interesting. Huh? Interesting.
[01:13:10] Tulsa: Can- should I just say it?
[01:13:11] Lauren Kimura: Yeah.
[01:13:12] Tulsa: The top one is computer science and then engineering.
[01:13:15] Lauren Kimura: Huh?
[01:13:16] Luisa: Yeah, that was me. I was computer science and I don't know what happened at my college. There was a very weird pipeline from computer science to Frisbee. So there was quite a few of us there. Yeah.
[01:13:30] Lauren Kimura: Oh, interesting. That's tea I didn't know that though.
[01:13:34] Tulsa: Yeah. There you go. Well, that's Frisbee Feud.
[01:13:39] Luisa: Thanks for playing Lauren.
[01:13:40] Tulsa: Effort.
[01:13:41] Lauren Kimura: Um, was I playing or was I just really floundering and failing?
[01:13:46] Lauren Kimura: I don't really
[01:13:46] Tulsa: was like a clue giving game for us, you know?
[01:13:50] Lauren Kimura: It was really just you teaching me about what Frisbee culture is like.
[01:13:54] Lauren Kimura: Apparently I wasn't aware.
[01:13:56] Tulsa: Yeah,
[01:13:57] Lauren Kimura: thank you.
[01:13:58] Luisa: Thank you Lauren, for joining us on Share the Air. It was awesome to talk to you and kinda get to know a long time enemy, you know, bit better.
[01:14:09] Lauren Kimura: Hopefully a frenemy now, but
[01:14:10] Luisa: A frenemy. Definitely. Definitely. It's kind of weird. Cause I feel like I'm the one punching up, you know, it's like, it's not like we were ever really rivals. Let's be honest. I feel like that's more Brute Squad and the 6ixers.
[01:14:25] Luisa: years, but
[01:14:26] Luisa: Yeah,
[01:14:28] Luisa: But yeah. Thank you for joining us on the show.
[01:14:30] Lauren Kimura: Yes. It was a pleasure. Thank you both for having me.
[01:14:33] Luisa: Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. If you like the podcast and want to support us, here are a few things that you can do.
[01:14:42] Tulsa: You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @sharetheairpodcast and on Twitter @sharetheairpod.
[01:14:48] Luisa: You can also rate and review us, and most importantly, subscribe to our podcasts wherever you listen.
[01:14:53] Tulsa: And if you want to show more support or you just can't get enough of Share the Air, you can check out our Patreon at patreon.com/sharetheair. If you're interested in repping some Share the Air gear, check out our VC Ultimate store at vcultimate.com.
[01:15:06] Luisa: If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us team@sharetheirpodcast.com. We'd love to hear from you.
[01:15:11] Tulsa: Thanks so much for listening.
[01:15:14] Luisa: Share the Air is recorded and edited by Tulsa Douglas and Luisa Neves. It is planned and produced by Tulsa Douglas, Luisa, Neves, and Tim Bobrowski.
[01:15:22] Tulsa: Share the Air's music is by Grey Devlin and Christopher Hernandez.
[01:15:26] Luisa: Finally, thanks again to our sponsors, NUTC, VC Ultimate, and the Centre for Applied Neuroscience.