Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Confession
My name is Bernie DeKoven. I am the author of Junkyard Sports. And this is my confession.
I wrote that book for a hidden purpose. A purpose that only now, after the book's relative success and acceptance in the physical education and recreation establishments, can I reveal.
Junkyard Sports is not just a new way for more kids to have more fun using their bodies and minds and environment playing sports-like stuff. It's more than that. It's a Training Manual for the Postapocalympics.
The "Postapocalympics" you exclaim, questioningly? Yes, yes, the Postapocalympics, I respond explanitorilly, where we who were left behind compete for our share of glory in, say, the Rubble Games?
Rubble Games? Perhaps. Tire Games, certainly. Tin can bowling? Not necessarily.
Go ahead, look once more at the pages of Junkyard Sports and tell me what you see? Mere fun and games? Or prescriptions perhaps, powerfully playful prescriptions, you might think, of how to prepare for the inevitable eviting.
And now, today, with this blog, I make it public. I make it known. I make it an invitation. To you, the world, personally:
Come. Create. Submit. Comment. Let us join together now, at last, you and I, in the grim shadows of the future past, and create it ourselves, the Postapocalympics. Let us, the many we are, invent anew the games, the very games, the Games of the Postapocalympiad.
Shard Put for example.
I wrote that book for a hidden purpose. A purpose that only now, after the book's relative success and acceptance in the physical education and recreation establishments, can I reveal.
Junkyard Sports is not just a new way for more kids to have more fun using their bodies and minds and environment playing sports-like stuff. It's more than that. It's a Training Manual for the Postapocalympics.
The "Postapocalympics" you exclaim, questioningly? Yes, yes, the Postapocalympics, I respond explanitorilly, where we who were left behind compete for our share of glory in, say, the Rubble Games?
Rubble Games? Perhaps. Tire Games, certainly. Tin can bowling? Not necessarily.
Go ahead, look once more at the pages of Junkyard Sports and tell me what you see? Mere fun and games? Or prescriptions perhaps, powerfully playful prescriptions, you might think, of how to prepare for the inevitable eviting.
And now, today, with this blog, I make it public. I make it known. I make it an invitation. To you, the world, personally:
Come. Create. Submit. Comment. Let us join together now, at last, you and I, in the grim shadows of the future past, and create it ourselves, the Postapocalympics. Let us, the many we are, invent anew the games, the very games, the Games of the Postapocalympiad.
Shard Put for example.
# posted by Bernie @ 10:51 AM 
Comments:
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Shard Put
Competitors take their throw from inside a circle, more or less 2.135 metres (7 feet) in diameter. If the ground is uneven or cracked or covered with ants, the diameter of the circle may vary. The toe board or brick is approximately 10 cm (4") high at the front of the circle. The shard must land within an angle of approximately 30 degrees. The athlete must rest the shard in between the neck and shoulder and keep it tight to the neck while throwing. In the absence of a neck, the athlete may rest the shard on the shoulder. At the end of the throw, the thrower must push the throwing arm straight with the thumb or something pointing down; if the thrower does not push the shard out and throws it like a baseball, the thrower may receive injury. Throwing a shard requires immense strength and power as well as grace and balance; while not as much so as discus, shard put is not merely heaving a metal shard but requires finesse. The shard putters must enter and leave the circle from the rear half of the circle, or a foul is called. Other fouls include stepping out of the circle before the judge calls the mark, letting some article of clothing touch the top of the toeboard or outside the circle, letting any extra limbs, tails or tentacles to assist in putting the shard, and/or the shard falling outside of the borders to the left and the right. The distance thrown is measured from the front of the circle to where the shard lands at its nearest disturbance of the soil.
(with assistance from Wikipedia)
Competitors take their throw from inside a circle, more or less 2.135 metres (7 feet) in diameter. If the ground is uneven or cracked or covered with ants, the diameter of the circle may vary. The toe board or brick is approximately 10 cm (4") high at the front of the circle. The shard must land within an angle of approximately 30 degrees. The athlete must rest the shard in between the neck and shoulder and keep it tight to the neck while throwing. In the absence of a neck, the athlete may rest the shard on the shoulder. At the end of the throw, the thrower must push the throwing arm straight with the thumb or something pointing down; if the thrower does not push the shard out and throws it like a baseball, the thrower may receive injury. Throwing a shard requires immense strength and power as well as grace and balance; while not as much so as discus, shard put is not merely heaving a metal shard but requires finesse. The shard putters must enter and leave the circle from the rear half of the circle, or a foul is called. Other fouls include stepping out of the circle before the judge calls the mark, letting some article of clothing touch the top of the toeboard or outside the circle, letting any extra limbs, tails or tentacles to assist in putting the shard, and/or the shard falling outside of the borders to the left and the right. The distance thrown is measured from the front of the circle to where the shard lands at its nearest disturbance of the soil.
(with assistance from Wikipedia)
Team Shard Put
Given the political climate at the time of the Postapocalympics, we could make Shard Put a test of team strength and agility. We could keep all the standard rules of Shard Put intact (see above), and simply add more athletes and increase the size of the charge they must put. I concur that the spinning around part is going to be a bit of an added challenge. On the other hand, depending on the weight of the shard (styrofoam, bubblewrap), it could prove all the more amusing in deed.
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Given the political climate at the time of the Postapocalympics, we could make Shard Put a test of team strength and agility. We could keep all the standard rules of Shard Put intact (see above), and simply add more athletes and increase the size of the charge they must put. I concur that the spinning around part is going to be a bit of an added challenge. On the other hand, depending on the weight of the shard (styrofoam, bubblewrap), it could prove all the more amusing in deed.
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