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I have officially been here a week and it's been a very interesting one for sure. I have a lot of adapting to do. First off what I've found is the scene is quite a bit smaller here. The courses are few, very different, and pretty spread out. Nothing quite compares to having Blue Lake and Milo McIver within a half hour drive. I'm having a slow time adjusting from the amazing Portland scene that I came from. However, I have big plans for this place and I really want the folks down here to have a similar experience to what Portland has. Hopefully I can figure out the secret. Something amazing to me, is the community that disc golf has to offer. Here I am in a new state for only a week, and I already feel at home with the people. They already feel like family. I've experienced that no matter where I go; Ohio, California, North Carolina....all across the states, I leave with a handful of my new favorite people after just 2 or 3 days together. Perhaps I just haven't been involved in enough sports to know if it's like this elsewhere, but disc golf is a really outstanding thing. I played the Shelly Sharp Memorial at Vista del Camino Park in Scottsdale, AZ this weekend against four advanced women who all kicked butt. I actually played pretty decent and took second by one stroke to Trina Letting. That's fun and all, but what really stands out to me is I went with only two friends and came out with a handful of new ones and a great sense of community already (also a spot on a podcast for a local, more on that to come)! Still, I've certainly been craving the companionship that my Portland disc golf family offered. It's tough being in a place with few connections and very few people that I can sit and talk about disc golf with for hours on end. I'm pretty sure if I ever had a personal ad it would read: "willing to discuss frisbees for 5+ hours (required)." It'll come along though. There's a few leagues throughout the week and I'm meeting people every day. Also, a huge a thank you to those of you sending your thoughts and wishes and "good lucks" you guys hold me together!! Next up: -Meet more ladies in the area. -Meet more of Tucson's golfers. -Get the ladies fall in love with disc golf. -Repeat I have a lot of work to do here but I'm very optimistic about the impact we can have here and elsewhere for women. Let's grow this sport! Photos from this weekend - Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tucson.
The next leg of my adventure has officially begun. I'm currently sitting at a Starbucks in Oro Valley, AZ, very close to Tucson, composing my first blog post since April.
I'm finally free from the full-time employment life I had lived for many years. I guess this means I did it! I'm actually here, with a mountain behind me, in a new state, sitting outside in a dress in October...working. This is what "working" looks like now. I'm basically retired! And I'm 27. I suppose retired is a strong word in my current situation as I still essentially have 3 jobs. 3 jobs that I LOVE! I work on my own schedule, I disc golf all the time, I live in an RV in Arizona, it sure feels like retirement. Now for the business. What am I doing here? What now? Now, I set out to gather women of all types in the area and get them to fall in love with disc golf. I've had a strong love for this sport since August of 2011 and it continues to grow as I find myself more deeply involved every day. All I want is to share just a little of that with as many people as possible. I want the rest of the world to understand what amazing things disc golf can bring to their lives. I have a handful of people I have the privilege of working with here as part of the Women's Disc Golf Outreach Charity, most importantly Bill Richardson, my colleague and friend. He had the gusto to drive a truck all the way from Tucson to Portland, and back again the next day with my RV- Elizabeth Trailer and my hedgehog Herbie of course. I can't say thank you enough for his help! Here are some photos from the 3-day trek down to Arizona, and our FIRST Monday ladies league at a ball golf course (18 temp baskets). I can't wait to meet more disc golfers here and reach out to the unsuspecting future disc golf women in Tucson! I’d like to start off with a bit of a back-story, but going forward, I promise this blog will be filled with exciting and helpful information and videos that I hope will inspire disc golfers everywhere to follow their dreams!
I’m a girl from a small college town in Wisconsin – River Falls to be exact. A small town with lots of cows and quite luckily a small 9-hole “mid-range course”. For those of you that don’t know, Wisconsin is East of Minnesota whose popular city is Minneapolis (I grew up 45 minutes from here). I've found in my recent travels that very few people know anything about Wisconsin, except for the cheese which really is the most important part. Now that we have that geography lesson down, Wisconsin is a cold cold place in the winter and a hot hot humid one in the summer. It’s honestly a pretty tough place to live, though it can be beautiful, it’s not the place for me. In November of 2013 I moved to the beautiful land of Portland, Oregon. I’d never been to the West coast but I have this extremely adventurous side to myself that needs to see and discover new places. Oregon is wonderful, but it’s not the last place I intend to live. I have a list of cities I’d like to long-term visit and I have every intention to check them off in the next few years. I’ll likely add a few during this journey as well. I guess this is where disc golf comes in. I've been playing for three and a half years (or so) now. I’m addicted. I was addicted within days of my first real round of golf and I hope to always be involved in the sport in one way or another. My Goals: To tour professionally in 2016 To be debt free (with the exception of my RV which I’m considering “Rent”) To grow my business And most importantly to inspire disc golfers (especially women) to follow their dreams. How did I get to where I am today? Disc Golf World Championships (Worlds): This event will come into play dozens of times throughout this blog, I’m sure, as it completely changed my life. Two major things happened here. 1st I watched the pro women play and I got excited like a little school girl seeing their favorite boy band for the first time. A fire was ignited in me. That is what I wanted to do. I’d make it work. I’d figure it out, but I was going to be a professional disc golfer. 2nd My spirit animal (this is actually a person, disc golfer and a close friend of mine) and I discussed the “grip sacs” that I had been making for years, and so the idea for my business Whale Sacs was born. Whale Sacs: My business was born off of a simple idea and a lot of work and has since helped pay for tournament fees and travel. Being that this is still the beginning and Whale Sacs isn't even a year old yet, there is still a lot of learning and growing to do. Whale Sacs takes up a lot of my free time but I get to sew and work with my hands and I get to sell them to Disc Golfers, I really can’t complain about what it is even now. And I’m very excited to see what it can become. My RV: Still to be given a name, my RV is my new place of residence, currently parked at a friends house. This is also very new and I have a LOT of learning to do. I have wanted to move into an RV for about 2 and a half years now – as soon as I decided to move out of Wisconsin, but it didn't fully fit into my plan until this spring. So, here I am, only a month into the big purchase and I don’t have any regrets so far! The RV will allow me to travel to my tournaments next year while saving me a ton of money for years to come. This blog came about because I have gained a wealth of knowledge on a lot of interesting subjects in the last few years. I have gotten a lot of questions about the hows and the whys and I feel it’s important to share this information hopefully further than just my fellow Portland disc golfers. I think it’s important to be an example for the people I have met that think they can’t make a life in disc golf work for them. I disagree, friends. I think it CAN work. It might not be easy, but if you set your mind and soul to it, I think we can all achieve it. I intend to make this partially a video blog with hopefully a weekly video post about one of these subjects. If you have input or want to know anything about…well, anything, just shoot me a message and we’ll chat. Until next time, Tina |
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Author
Tina Stanaitis - Professional Disc Golfer (#68076), Entrepreneur, Full Time RVer, and Dream Follower Extraordinaire!
Tina's Current Location:
Portland, OR
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