YOUTH RECORD ATTEMPT
The Attempt Still Mattered
Kyla and Payten were Grade 4 students when they decided to take on three Self-Caught Flight world records. They trained, learned the techniques and stood in front of their classmates to see what they could do. Neither broke a world record — but that didn’t make the attempt a failure.
RECORD ATTEMPTED
U9 & U10 Girls Maximum Time Aloft · Throw, Run and Catch · Self-Caught Flight
THE OPPORTUNITY
Give two young athletes something difficult to try.
n 2015, I met Kyla and Payten when I visited their school to deliver an assembly and teach frisbee workshops. They were both in Grade 4, and after that visit they took what they had learned and started a Frisbee Club at their school.
Their interest in frisbee kept growing, and eventually that led to something much more ambitious: attempting youth Self-Caught Flight records. Kyla would attempt the U9 records and Payten the U10 records in three events: Maximum Time Aloft, Throw, Run and Catch, and the combined Self-Caught Flight score.
I helped the girls prepare for the attempt by teaching them the rules of the events and working with them on one of the most important skills in Self-Caught Flight: using the wind to make the disc return toward the thrower. Their families and school were part of the process too, with their mothers supporting them and their classmates getting behind what they were trying to do.
For me, the interesting part wasn’t that they were expected to break the records. They weren’t. The opportunity was in giving them something genuinely difficult to pursue and seeing what grew from that first introduction to frisbee — from starting a school club, to learning new skills, to stepping into an official record attempt without knowing exactly how it would turn out.
THE ATTEMPT
The outcome was uncertain. That was the point.
On October 16, 2015, Kyla and Payten made their official attempts with their classmates there to cheer them on. I served as the official judge.
Both girls were attempting Maximum Time Aloft, Throw, Run and Catch, and Self-Caught Flight. In each discipline, the throw only counts if the athlete catches the disc, which means every attempt carries a very simple risk: you can do everything right leading up to the day and still miss the catch when it matters.
That was part of what happened for Kyla. She wasn’t able to complete a catch during the official attempts, so she did not record a result.
Payten completed her catches and established three U10 Canadian records: an MTA of 2.5 seconds, a TRC of 11.9 metres, and a Self-Caught Flight score of 22.35. Her TRC came within two metres of the U10 world record.
Neither girl broke a world record.
And that is an important part of the story.
They had prepared, stepped into an official attempt and put themselves in a situation where the result was genuinely uncertain. The outcome didn’t erase the work that had gone into getting there.
WATCH THE STORY
Kyla & Payten Take on the Challenge
WHAT IT CREATED
Not every meaningful attempt ends with a record.
Kyla and Payten’s attempt has stayed with me because it challenges one of the easiest assumptions to make about records: that the only successful story is the one that ends with somebody breaking one.
It doesn’t.
A meaningful target has to contain the possibility that you might not achieve it. If success is guaranteed before you start, the challenge probably isn’t asking very much of you.
Kyla experienced that uncertainty in the clearest possible way. She prepared for the attempt and then didn’t get the catch she needed when the day arrived. Payten had a different outcome. She didn’t reach the world records either, but her performances established three Canadian benchmarks and showed how close she could get.
Both stepped into the same kind of challenge: prepare as well as you can, take the attempt seriously and then find out what happens.
That idea has become increasingly important in how I think about World Record Mindset™. The record gives us something measurable to pursue, but we can’t make the value of the experience dependent entirely on whether the final number happens to cross the line.
If the target is worth pursuing, then the preparation, learning, personal bests and willingness to attempt something uncertain have value too.
A record attempt can matter even when the record doesn’t happen.
YOUR NEXT RECORD
What could your next record be?
Whether it’s a world record, an organizational record or a personal best, the first step is identifying a target worth changing for.