Here's how left-wing frisbee was described to me when I joined the game months after it had started: It's a friendly game, and we don't play all the rules. That's worked mostly for almost two years now, though style of play does evolve—defending the thrower seems more common now than when I

From the defensive playbook: The amused glance.

started, when much of the defense consisted of pressuring the thrower with an amused glance.

But since ours is a full-spectrum game (meaning everyone from "varsity players" to "virgins"), we have to have some understanding of rules, or we end up hitting our closest friends out of sheer frustration. In the interest of starting a colloquy (see "starting an argument," above), I'll take a stab at defining which rules we use, which we don't, and which may be in a gray area. (If you want to spend a lot of time going through the current official league rules, have at it.)

Be kind when feasible.

Rule #2: You Can Never Go Too Far to the Left

No sidelines can make for crowded endzones.

If you're holding the disc, stop. Don't make us go Wile E. Coyote on your ass.

This is a throwing game and you can't run with the disc (only a few steps if you catch it at full speed). Once you're holding the disc, you must keep one foot planted.

We often let people get away with little hops when they throw (like Brad), as long as they don't string so many together that they're moving up the field. But like the pick, this can be called if you abuse it too much—though we seldom call for turnovers, it may lead to play stoppage and to making the traveller go back where they're supposed to be, red-faced.

What other rules do we use? Any disc contact with the ground except for fouls turns it over to the other team, and each toss into the endzone scores a point.

In order to faciliatate the throws that are the basis of the game, markers must stay a

Keith & Dave demonstrate keeping the legal guarding distance.

disc width from the thrower. (Keith, it's official, I was wrong about three feet.) On defense, you can't knock the disc out of someone's hand (but it's OK to slap the disc if it has left their hand), you can't go over someone's back to get to the disc, and in general any contact that doesn't seem to be in pursuit of the disc is a potential foul.

We don't use stall counts (though we try not to abuse that too unreasonably) and we don't much enforce pick rules (though flagrant picks where you run around a teammate who throws out a shoulder may be called).

According to the official rules, every player has the right to vertical space above them, but if we played this too seriously, it would hamper Nick's game, so we haven't yet. However, a redistribution of space might be fairer to shorter players, as well as more left-wing in general.

Foul Play

If you think you've been fouled, and it affects the course of the point, call it. Sometimes you can get a second opinion from someone with a better perspective on the play, and sometimes the accused contests the call. If a foul is contested, disc

Your teammates can help you determine if you've been fouled.

goes back to the thrower. If it is not contested, the catcher gets it, unless it was in the endzone, at which point we put it right on the line.

Left-wing frisbee doesn't follow most of the substitution rules (two people can join opposing teams at almost any point during the game, though we usually wait until a point is scored), and in fact horrify serious players by increasing/decreasing the endzone boxes based on how many people are playing. We've also been known to play more than seven people on a team, since it's such a pain to get a second game going and since I've been told it's often impossible to get many of the players (like, say, men) to sit down and take subs. We've also occasionally played a rule where whoever scores the point has to sit and take a sub if we have a lot of people sitting on the sidelines (This is not the famed "Reduction" game, which I still don't understand despite having been on the winning team the first time it was played.)

Hey, man, if these rules aren't, like, good for you as a living thing, then let's rap.

These are our rules, as I understand them, always subject to change, though I'd guess we'd probably use consensus, so nobody will bother to do it officially. On the other hand, rule changes suggested over beers after the game are often entertained and maybe even welcomed.

*Hard-Assed Lefty Footnote

Which reminds me of our unique exclusion rule that gives this game its name: you must be a left-winger to play. This tends to mean labor folk, enviro crunchies,

Kiss our leftist ass.

peaceniks, corporate campaigners, and other fellow travellers, though we even allow Democrat party hacks to play if we like them. But no libertarians (especially Cato folk—you're not left just because some of the right-wing hates you), no neo-anythings, and no unemployed writers (just kidding, Jim). The fact that you were once in a union or work for the government may not impress anyone, especially if you move our sidelines around, play rough, and no one likes you. When questions arise, lefty credential tests may be administered by Kris. Verdicts are not appealable.