Weird Sports, Vol 4: Shin Kicking

Pictured above: dumb people exercising their dumbness. Shin kicking is dumb.

Weird Sports is a semiregular feature I write for the Rec Services blog at Trinity Western University as a favour to a good friend of mine. It will appear on PITB on Thursdays (ish). Let us take a break from our Canuckness and appreciate that Canadians are a hockey-loving people, and not the sort that love dumb sports like this one.

In case I haven’t been clear as to how these weird sports are undeniable evidence that humanity is riding a bullet train straight into a river of pure, liquid stupidity, consider the unique sport of shin kicking. Yes, shin kicking is a very real organized sport in which two opponents square off, grasp shoulders, and then violently kick, or “clog” each other’s shins. I’m not kidding you. That’s all this is.

How do you win a shin kicking match? It’s quite simple. You kick an opponent so hard in the shins that he becomes unable to stand. Then you push him over. Now I’m no pacifist, and I enjoy a good fight (preferably of the hockey variety) as much as the next bloodthirsty psycho, but shin kicking seems, to me, to be unpleasant for all involved parties. Have you ever so much as hit your shin on a coffee table? It is the worst thing in the world. There is no greater pain, save perhaps when a cat bites the flap of skin between the thumb and the forefinger. My innate protectiveness of the shins is a large part of why I don’t play soccer (also a weird sport). Apparently, you’re allowed to wear thick socks–even stuff them with straw–if you’re a tad apprehensive about the idea of having your shins bashed in by someone’s shoe. Not that this helps–contestants are jerks, so they wear heavy boots, though you’ll be pleased to know that steel-toed boots were banned in the 1950s (before which time broken legs were commonplace).

But here’s the incredible thing: shin kicking was invented in 1636, which means it took a very long time for somebody to suggest that steel-toed boots took the fun out of it. Since steel-toed boots were invented around 1899, that means half a century went by before somebody went, “People probably don’t like it when somebody kicks them in the shins with a steel-toed boot FOR SPORT.” I personally feel this realization was unnecessarily delayed.

Yes, shin-kicking, or “Hacking”, as it is often called by those in the know, was invented in the 1630s in England. For some reason, it was often done in the nude. Tales of “hobnailed” or “clogged” competitors gushing blood were commonplace, and the sport was popular among the working class. Unsurprisingly, it was not popular among Puritans, the lovable, America-founding stick-in-the-muds who, as we all know, were against all pointless frivolity (except for witch-hunting).

In this case, they probably had a point. I think we can all agree that the good lord did not design our shins to be “clogged.”

One thing I often wonder about is how somebody trains for a weird sport like this. When it comes to shin kicking, it’s actually quite simple: contestants harden their shins by hitting them with coal hammers. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? What possesses a man to sit down in his spare time and hit his shins with a coal hammer? Why, the love of sport, and unfortunately, a lot of people love shin kicking. How many? Too many. More than enough to host a World Shin Kicking Championships, a popular annual event in Gloucester, in the southwest region of England. I imagine that's a gathering of unfiltered stupidity not unlike the locker room of a certain Alberta-based hockey team. Just sayin'.

Has anybody ever been to a shin kicking competition? Is it even half as stupid as it sounds? Because, to me, it sounds twice as stupid as it sounds. Let me know in the comments.

Weird Sports, Vol 3: Bog Snorkelling

Pictured: a fool, awash in foolishness.

Weird Sports is a semiregular feature I write for the Rec Services blog at Trinity Western University as a favour to a good friend of mine. It will appear on PITB on Thursdays. Yesterday was Thursday--it's late. Whatever. You're not my dad. Let us take a break from our Canuckness and appreciate that Canadians are a hockey-loving people, and not the sort that love dumb sports like this one.

Have you ever been snorkelling? It’s wonderful. I highly recommend snorkelling along the Hawaiian cost, where the water is warmed by the hot, Pacific sun, and a rainbow of marine life swirls in and out of the reefs just beneath you. In Hawaii, the water is crystal clear, and the sights are equal parts sublime and beautiful. The experience is legendary. I’ve done it twice, and I can assure you of one thing: while I was there, snorkelling, surveying all that God has made and placed underwater, I never once thought, Man, I want to do this in a peat bog.

Unfortunately, others have. Bog snorkelling is an event that takes place primarily in the dense Waen Rhydd peat bog of Llanwrtyd Wells at the World Bog Snorkelling Championship. It’s sporting event that consists of competitors completing two consecutive lengths of a 60-yard (55 m) water-filled trench cut through this bog in the shortest time possible. Competitors must wear snorkels and flippers and complete the course without using conventional swimming techniques for some reason, relying on flipper power alone. Let us, at this moment, realize that kicking one’s feet is a conventional swimming technique, and this sport is so stupid even its most basic rules contradict themselves. From Wikipedia:

The World Bog Snorkeling Championship, first held in 1985, [...] now attracts more than 200 entrants each year and is currently sponsored by Fun Swim Shop. [...] Dan Morgan of Brecon is the new world record holder with the time 1 minute 30.66 seconds, having shattered the previous record set by Joanne Pitchforth. Dan Morgan is the current men’s champion, Dineka Maguire is the current women’s champion, and John Hilliard the current champion junior bog snorkeller.

That’s right, junior bog snorkeller. They’ve already gotten to our kids. We fought the bog, and the bog won.

Before I go any further, I need to draw your attention to an international conspiracy I may be the first person to have noticed. Do you recognize the name Llanwrtyd Wells? You should, as it’s also the site of the Man Versus Horse Marathon, the first entry in the Weird Sports series. In fact, you might also be interested in knowing that the sport of Bog Snorkelling was invented by wealthy land/pub owner Gordon Green, who also devised and organized the original Man/Horse challenge. In both cases, the sport began as a conversation among the drunks in his pub, and was immediately turned into a paean to human stupidity by Gordon. Thinking about it, he may be perhaps the most internationally successful community organizer since Barack Obama. And he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry.

Want to know what else is interesting about Llanwrtyd Wells? This:

Llanwrtyd Wells was once a spa town following the discovery of waters with amazing healing properties in 1732, by the Rev. Theophilus Evans. The wells were referred to as “Ffynnon Ddrewllyd” or Stinking Well because of the smell of hydrogen sulphide gas that was given off when you breathed the vapours. Spa fashion reached its peak in the Victorian era and many of the hotels in Llanwrtyd Wells date back to these times. The Belle Vue Hotel was built in 1843 and is the only purpose built hotel in Llanwrtyd Wells.

That’s right. Llanwrtyd Wells, the smallest town in Britain at 601 people and known primarily for a dense peat bog that reeks of sulfur, was once a spa town. This place is the home of the greatest con of all time, and it persists to this day. These people have been coming up with innovative ways to promote and make money from this awful bog for over 200 years. First, the spa scheme (as bogus a scheme as I’ve ever heard), then the craze of bog snorkelling. It’s a town of flimflam salespeople stimulating tourism with bogus reasons to visit a bog, and Gordon Green is their king. How else do you operate a pub in a town of 600 people?

How do I know for sure that this is a crazy scam? The other events that take place in this bog. There’s The World Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling Championships, in which bog-snorkellers race along the floor of the bog on bicycles with lead in the tires, weighed down by backpacks also filled with lead. If extreme cycling isn’t extreme enough, try adding the threat of drowning, which is ever-present:

Participants sometimes panic in the murky depths—in 2000, one woman had to be rescued twice before eventually winning the female title—but thanks to vigilant, wetsuited medics, all the entrants in the race’s eight-year history have made it out alive.

Wicked. There’s also the BMX Bog Triathlon, which combines all the dumb sports Llanwrtyd Wells is known for into one extremely dumb sport. In this one, contestants have to run seven and a half miles, snorkel two lengths of the stupid bog, and then cycle to the finish line.

Part of me wishes I lived near this bog, because I could come up with all sorts of sweet, bog-related athletics. Basketbog, wherein competitors play basketball in the bog; Red Bog Rover, where two teams play red rover on the shores of the bog, but you have to swim the length of the bog for no reason when you’re called over; Blogging, which has nothing to do with online journalling and everything to do with eating a bogwater-logged log while in the bog; and The Bog Chug, where competitors drink bog water until they suffer acute organ failure.

What say we rent a single engine plane and fly to Llanwrtyd Wells right now?

Weird Sports, Vol 2: Chess Boxing

Pictured: two men, wondering where the "delete" button is for their lives.

Weird Sports is a semiregular feature I write for the Rec Services blog at Trinity Western University as a favour to a good friend of mine. It will appear on PITB on Thursdays. Today is Thursday. Let us take a break from our Canuckness and appreciate that Canadians are a hockey-loving people, and not the sort that love dumb sports like this one.

Chess Boxing is, sadly, exactly what it sounds like: a hybrid sport that combines the headgame of chess with the punching-a-head game that is boxing. Competitors alternate between four-minute rounds of speed chess and three-minute rounds of being used as a speedbag.

Oh yeah. Chess and boxing, finally united! With two ways to win! You can win a chess boxing match either by checkmate or knockout.

Now I’m no chessmaster by any means, but I can think of when this might come in handy. Often, when wasting time, I challenge my computer to a chess match, and I can’t think of anything more cathartic than punching that smarmy, artificially intelligent twerp right in the face every four minutes or so. Chess, by its very nature, requires an analytical mind. Pugilism is the desperate resort last of those that lack it, an overwhelming majority. Indeed, chess boxing is a very human sport.

But is it popular? Oh my, yes, especially in Russia. Why? Well, Russians live there, and they love chess. They also love fist fighting, especially Russian Fist Fighting, a form of fist fighting which is, apparently, distinctly Russian. Why exactly? No reason, although it’s worth noting that the phrase “Don’t hit a man when he’s down” has its roots in Russian Fist Fighting. Hitting a man when he’s down a rook and a bishop, however, is fine, so long as you’re chess boxing. The sport has grown since its inception in the early nineties, and is now governed by the World Chess Boxing Organisation (the WCBO). Their motto: “Fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board.” Clearly, they are not fans of peace. The first world championship held in nutty old Amsterdam in 2003. Since then, national chess boxing federations have been founded, and chess boxers win the right to represent their country at the world championships.

Like many things (including some religions), chess boxing was originally dreamed up by a writer (Enki Bilal) and then taken seriously by crazy people. In this case, the proto-wacko was a man named Lepe Rubingh, who brought the sport to life, with some changes. Rubingh felt that a boxing match followed by a chess match was impractical, so he decided to alternate rounds in the manner I described above, apparently missing that this is also impractical. You see, playing an intense, intellectual strategy game with occasional stoppages to get your nose broken is impractical.

Here is a summary of the 2009 light heavyweight (there are divisions!) world championship bout, from Wikipedia:

November 28, 2009 saw the light heavyweight world championship bout between chess boxers Nikolay “The Chairman” Sazhin and Leo “Granit” Kraft, at the Ivan Yargin Palace of Sport in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, before a crowd of 2000. [...] The fight opened with the Gruenfeld defense, and was followed by the first boxing round, which was largely dominated by the younger Kraft. The return to the chessboard in the third round saw Kraft castling early, and the resulting play saw Kraft having to defend his king. Sazhin continued in the subsequent boxing round, taking the upper hand in the fight. However, once they returned to the chess board, Sazhin used up too much time attacking Kraft’s king. Thus by round eight Sazhin was forced to win by knockout or lose on the board. This he failed to do, and, on returning to the chess board, Sazhin resigned the match.

Okay, forget everything I said. This actually sounds pretty cool. Chess boxing appears to be a sport of nicknames! This might give me a chance to use my old high school nickname, “The Punch-Taker”. How applicable!

Why isn’t this an olympic sport? It’s way, way cooler than speed walking (also a weird sport; some people call speed walking “running”). Chess boxing rules! Check out this highlight package!

I’d love to hear from somebody who’s been to a chess boxing match. Is it riveting? Do the players bleed on their pawns? Can you kick your opponent under the table? Are mistakes made on the chess board as a result of brain trauma suffered in the ring? Are the ringside paramedics also parcheesi champions? I need to know.

Weird Sports, Vol 1: The Man Versus Horse Marathon

Pictured: a human, in a fight against the inevitable.

Weird Sports is a semiregular feature I write for the Rec Services blog at Trinity Western University as a favour to a good friend of mine. Let us take a break from our Canuckness and appreciate that Canadians are a hockey-loving people and not the sort that love dumb sports like this one.

The first thing you need to know about the Welsh is that they have a strange fascination with the letter Y. The second thing is that they think they are more athletic than horses. This is bizarre, especially when you consider that, when man cannot run the prerequisite distance in the prerequisite amount of time, or jump the prerequisite height in the prerequisite iron footwear, he uses a horse. The horse, with his muscular quadripedal body, is better than the man. At least in specific, horse-appropriate athletics.

The Welsh disagree. And, in Llanwrtyd Wells, a small town in the parish of Llanwrtyd, in Powys (I told you they like their Ys), they compete with horses in the Man Versus Horse Marathon. Sometimes you hear about stupid ideas, and you wonder what sort of people would come up with them. The answer? Foolish people. Sometimes, drunk people. And, in special cases, foolish, drunk people.

Such is the case here. The Man Versus Horse Marathon began in 1980, when a Welsh landlord/tavern owner named Gordon Green overheard two men arguing in his publichouse. The notion: in a significant distance, across the country, a man was as fast as any horse. Mistaking this for a genuine hypothesis, rather than what it was (sweet, beautiful drunk talk), Green decided to test it, and the first Man Versus Horse Marathon was organized. The title explains almost everything, but here are some additional details. The race covers 22 miles, making it an unofficial marathon only. True marathons are over 26 miles at minimum. The race takes competitors through some of the most picturesque scenery in Wales via farm tracks, footpaths, open moorland and tarmac. It's a rough terrain, which slows down the horses, but don't get too excited (hold your horses, natch): rough terrain slows down humans too. So, yes. Horses tend to win, but if any man can post the fastest time, he wins 1000 British pounds.

Here's the crazy thing: the horses don't always win. In 1985, cyclists were allowed to enter the race. This, I imagine, came after the Welsh were frustrated with eight years of their man-can-beat-horse hypothesis going unsupported. Still, it took four more years for somebody to beat the horse. In 1989, cyclist Tim Gould won the race. Thankfully, unlike baseball, they put an asterisk by anybody that wins while on supplements (in this case, the supplement is a bicycle), and Gould was unable to claim the prize money, which compounds annually. Finally, In 2004, Huw Lobb shocked the world when he won the race on foot, completing the course in two hours, five minutes, and nineteen seconds. In my favorite additional fact, a bunch of bookies lost money when they had to pay out on the 16/1 odds they'd given on a man winning. Why are people betting on this?

Here's Lobb, with my favorite quote, from the BBC: "It is a very unusual event with men running against horses." You think?

Lobb may not take the event that seriously, but others do. From Wikipedia:

The 2009 race was marred by controversy when the organizers deducted time spent in the 'vet checks' from the horse times in addition to the 15 minutes for the delayed start of the horses. The deduction of this additional time enabled the horse to triumph by 8 minutes, instead of being defeated by 2. Whilst the organizers at the time, claimed that the time spent in the vet check (which is not accurately monitored on a horse by horse basis) had always been deducted, this had not occurred in previous years^[6]. The fastest runner, Martin Cox, refused to accept the winners trophy in protest at the decision.

Yeah, the Man Versus Horse Marathon is a pretty big deal. If you want to know more, here is a quaint, eight-minute mini-documentary saying a lot of the same things I just said, but in a charming British accent.