Why Flipsi?

posted by Jean McCollister

This is actually two questions. Why start up a dogfrisbee club in Slovenia? And where did we get the name "Flipsi" for it?

As for the first, a bit of history is in order. There has been an informal, and steadily growing, community of dogfrisbee enthusiasts in Slovenia at least since January of 2007. It started up first mainly within the agility community, a canine sport which is already highly developed in this country. Through the agility and PeSjanar internet forums, as well as in person when we saw one another at agility competitions, we organized group purchases of canine frisbees and shared training tips and ideas. A little later I ordered a Skyhoundz DVD, watched it myself, and loaned it to others who were interested. Of course YouTube was also a source of ideas and inspiration for all of us learning the sport. Then in the spring of 2007, following a link posted by a member of the agility forum, I learned of a five-day seminar in Germany at Hundesporthotel Wolf with Karin Actun in late June, and signed up.

At that point I was hooked: together with my daughter, I went to another seminar at the same place in August with Sabine Bruns and Marcus Wolff, and learned even more. In between I went to my first competition in Stromovka Park, Prague, at which Sabine and Marcus were judges, and first met people in the Czech Republic involved in the sport, with whom we Slovenian players have close cooperation to this day.

The Czechs have played a major role in teaching us the sport. Nine of them, under the leadership of Jakub Stybr, came to Slovenia at our invitation in April 2008 to give a two-day seminar hosted by Ajdovščina Kennel Club, and help us organize and judge the first ever dogfrisbee competition in Slovenia a day later, in Vipava. The seminar was a huge hit and the number of active and skilled Slovenian players grew still further.

Several of these players competed successfully at competitions in the Czech Republic, including the USDDN European Championship, during the 2008 season, and at that point it was a logical step to establish a sports club, to bring us all together under one organization, and through the organization to promote the visibility of the sport, to teach basic skills and rules of the game to newcomers through classes and seminars, to organize competitions and purchases of frisbee equipment, raise funds for the further development of the sport and the participation of our members at competitions and seminars abroad, and so on. Much of this had been taking place already informally, but we felt we could do it more effectively as a club.

And why "Flipsi" the name? The suggestion came from one of our members, Tomaž Šubic. Actually he had a couple of suggestions, both inspired by an Ultimate Frisbee club in Slovenia called Frizmi. "Frizmi" is a combination of "frizbi" (the slovenized form of "frisbee") and "mi", which means "we" in Slovene. Now "psi" means "dogs" in Slovene, so Tomaž suggested "Fripsi" for FRIzbi PSI(frisbee dogs). An alternative suggestion was FLIPSI, since one of the elements of frisbee freestyle is the flip, when the dog goes up into the air and twists to one side (some even perform a near somersault) to catch a short, high throw pitched slightly to one side. It looks like this:



So "Flipsi" could be seen as a composite of "flip" + "si" (country abbreviation for Slovenia), and it also has the word "psi" contained within it.

Another suggestion put forth, which I personally liked a lot, was "Leteče tačke", which means "flying paws" in Slovene. (By law the names of Slovenian-based organizations have to be in the Slovene language, so an English name such as those used by many clubs elsewhere in Europe was not an option for us.) But most people preferred Flipsi, because it's short and snappy and easier for non-Slovenes to pronounce.

And so here we are. A Slovenian dogfrisbee club called Flipsi.