Compact Disc Players : Two Canoga Park Teen-Agers Spin Themselves Into World Junior Frisbee Championships

Almost every day since they met two years ago, Aaron Litwin and Wendy Dushman have thrown plate-sized plastic discs at one another.

Day or night they’ve thrown, usually for about 90 minutes a day.

The persistence has paid off for the 15-year-old Canoga Park High students, who live together with Aaron’s father, Bob, and Wendy’s mother, Sharon, and share a talent for throwing and catching Frisbees.

By winning regional championships last Saturday in Buena Park, Aaron and Wendy qualified for the World Junior Frisbee Championships Oct. 17-18 in Orlando, Fla.

Both believe they have a good chance of winning in Orlando, Wendy having finished third in last year’s world championships at Magic Mountain and Aaron having upset and eliminated defending world champion Mike Taylor of Walnut last weekend.

The victory over Taylor ended years of frustration for Aaron, who had never beaten his rival.

Sharon Dushman was so moved that she broke down and cried.

“It was really very touching,� she said.

If the idea of getting that worked up over a Frisbee competition sounds a little silly--after all, Frisbee’s most famous athlete was a dog named Ashley Whippet--that premise is lost on the Litwins and the Dushmans.

“You can see we’re really into it,� said Litwin, showing a visitor some 140 plastic discs that adorn his bedroom walls. “It’s our life.�

Not quite, but they do take it seriously.

Litwin’s father plans Aaron’s and Wendy’s daily workouts, sometimes up to two months in advance. He incorporates their Frisbee throwing with weight training, push-ups, sit-ups, jogging and exercises in a swimming pool to strengthen their arms and shoulders. He also helps pay the expenses of a senior Frisbee competitor, Jon Freedman of West Los Angeles, who coaches Aaron and Wendy.

Last spring, he went a step further, hiring a Cal State Northridge kinesiologist, Darrel Guthrie, to film and evaluate their techniques.

“Without him,� Dushman said of Bob Litwin, an engineer at Rockwell, “we’d be sort of lost.�

Neither Litwin nor Dushman compete in sports at Canoga Park High, although Dushman said she plans to try out for the track team next spring.

Aaron never really liked competitive sports, according to his father. He threw a Frisbee pretty well on the beach, though, so his father signed him up for a contest.

He was 9.

He’s been competing ever since.

“This has been my hitch,� Aaron said, glancing toward Wendy. “Our hitch, really. It’s just something we can really relate to and can do pretty well.�

Wendy said she enjoys the sport because “every time you go out and practice, you learn something. It’s not a pain in the neck to practice because you can see yourself getting a lot better. And you can invent things and kind of be creative with it.�

Aaron had been competing for about four years when his father started dating Sharon Dushman in the summer of 1984. Aaron introduced the sport to Wendy.

Wendy picked it up so quickly that within a year she had qualified for the world championships, which are made up of five events: accuracy, distance, maximum time aloft, disc golf and freestyle.

The world champion wins a $1,000 U.S. savings bond from the event’s sponsors, Carnation Instant Breakfast and Wham-O, Inc.

At Magic Mountain last October, Wendy won a $250 savings bond, finishing behind Maria Lockwood of Milford, Conn., and Angie Rodriguez of Rock Falls, Ill.

Aaron couldn’t have been prouder.

At first, Bob Litwin said, Aaron and Wendy were competitive, but when they realized that they wouldn’t have to face each other in tournaments--which are divided into boys’ and girls’ divisions--they became more supportive of one another.

“It’s very helpful to have someone so good in the family,� Aaron said. “It’s an advantage.�

Still, Wendy said with a laugh, “we’re really good at telling each other what the other does wrong.�

This year, though, they haven’t had much to criticize.

So, they’ve just kept throwing.