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Published: March 11th 2007
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Rangers We left Calcutta in the back of a madman's tour-bus. It was cold, it was night, it was the impoverished upper-east corner of India. We didn't expect it, but we got it: ten hours of the worst discomfort either Chelly or I had ever imagined. The road was barley-paved and full of holes. Our driver bombed across pits and jumped the speed-bumps, weaving between both lanes of traffic and tearing off blindly to pass. I swear the bus got up on two wheels every time we took a corner. At the end of it, we were sore and tired and rearin' to puke.
So we got off the bus in the Hindu pilgrim's town of Puri. Avoiding the hawkers and the beggars and the cows, we jumped in an Auto Rickshaw on the way to the nearest cyber cafe. Sadly, the driver didn't know how to find any cyber cafes and we ended up wandering the streets.
I'd had an invite off of couchsurfing.com to come visit a guesthouse called Rangers. The place would cost only 200 ruppees per night and it sounded like a great forest/beach environment. We had no idea how to get there, however,
so I was hoping to find it all in an email.
A cyber cafe was found, but no email with directions. No biggee. We sucked it up, asked directions, caught another crazy bus full of pilgrims, and let the wind blow us around.
It was a long ride, on a road filled with stray cattle, but we were eventually dropped on the highway across from a cute little guesthouse and restaurant. Rangers had only two guest rooms, but there was a great restaurant, chilled-out music, a campfire, hammocks, and a trail leading to a lonely white-sand beach.
We spent a full week there and it was the highlight of our travels.
The Making of the Ball In addition to cheap rooms, great food, a friendly staff of co-operative owners, and wonderful proximity to nature, Rangers also had a volleyball net. It took me only two days of looking at that net before I determined to use it for sport. But not for volleyball--no--that would be too sissy. I needed to play a real tough sport.
First thing I did was borrow a bicycle from one of the guys. I took the cook's assistant
and we went into the closest village. Stopping at a few shops, we gathered rope, canvas bags, and a plastic ball.
Getting back to Rangers, I began the assembly process. I've made quite a few medicine balls at home, but never without duct tape. It doesn't sound serious, but this was real crazy-making stuff. First I tried to cut open the ball I'd bought in town and fill it with sand. I found it tearing and leaking and completely lacking shape. I tied some rags around it, used the canvas bag, and threw on some rope. Still it leaked. Finally, I wrapped it in layer after layer of tied, plastic grocery-bags (maybe 15 bags in all). Then we went out back to play.
The total weight of the ball was 3 kilos, but we were throwing it pretty far and catching it pretty hard. Halfway through the first game, we'd already lost half the bags. That evening saw us adding more plastic, tying a few ropes, and trying again. By the next day, an outer layer of sewn canvas finally settled the score.
Hoover Ball had come to Rangers.
Hoover Ball So, I hear
you asking, what exactly is Hoover Ball?
Hoover Ball is a sport. A sport of awesomeness. I have no idea who it was named after or who invented it or where it is most usually played. I discovered it through www.crossfit.com, where they occasionally post pictures of a match. My first game was at the Crossfit North gym in Seattle and I've been playing it here-and-there ever since.
The rules are simple: two teams (from 1 player to a half-dozen), one 8-foot volleyball net (bedsheets work too), one 3kg (6lb) medicine ball. You throw the ball any way you can, you catch it any way you can, and someone gets a point every time it hits the ground. Travelling is not allowed, but you can catch with any part of your body as long as the ball is not downed. If it was your point, you take the serve. Game usually goes to 11.
It sounds easy, but it isn't. Remember, you're throwing a heavy-ass medicine ball up the air and across a field (or court), trying to make it so the other guy can't catch it. The ball is always gonna be slow, so you have
to depend on throwing it really, really hard in order to make points. People get hurt.
The Passion and the Pain The first time I played the game was in a room full of other players. I got good demos and a few good practice catches before stepping out for a match. These Indian guys weren't so prepared.
It started out with just me and Sanjay (our host) getting on the field for a simple game. Pretty soon we were joined by the waiters and cooks and trail-guides, all looking to join the fun. We had a great rotating-player game going, then one of the old guys stepped on the field. I don't think he'd been watching us play, he was really just over-eager.
I didn't even realize he'd taken the field until the ball went flying his way and he tried to do a "set" (as in volleyball)...
Crunch!
He was down on the ground in pain with the saddest grin on his face. Half the guys were laughing at the way he'd hit the ball and the other half were just trying to help him up. We got the guy's wrist
massaged and gave him some skin-balm to numb the pain. I thought it must be broken.
But this injury did nothing to scare the other guys off the field. Indians love sport, and they always strive to show that they can do it better than the guys who came up with it (witness their love for Cricket). For the rest of our stay--as much as six times a day--I had challenges issued against me. I played enough Hoover Ball to last me months, but eventually I lost a match.
And that cemented it. Despite the inherent danger, Hoover Ball was Rangers new pasttime. I gave them the ball for keeps and wished them good luck in surviving that wide world of sports.
(Besides, the doctor said the wrist was only a sprain. And a fluke, really.)
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Aaron Brown
non-member comment
sounds like fun. I think I'm about ready for some semi-violent sport now with all this kettlebell lifting. I bought a 32 kg. recently. Can't do all that much with it yet, but I'm definitely getting steadily stronger.