Tchoukball

teacher's day rehearsal!

was damn tiring. dunno why. maybe wearing jeans for 5 hours in hall like an oven? playing through a 3 song playlist under (weird coloured) spotlights twice? or maybe the PE today morning, where we lost at tchoukball?

tchoukball. lemme give a short explanation of what it is for those of u who aren't sure what it is:

think captain's ball. now, replace each catcher, or "captain" with a trampoline at 45 degrees aimed the sky. each team only has three passes to score. the opponent team cannot intercept, or interrupt ur pass to ur teammate. to score, you have to throw the ball at the trampoline, and make sure no one on the opponent team catches it. oh, and ur can score either side's trampoline. also, the moment you drop the ball possession changes to the opponent. and if u miss your shot at the trampoline, point goes to the opponent. say what?

hey, i'm sure the game has its fans, and its supporters. i'm cool with that. not everyone likes basketball. so just a fair warning: this will be a biased and one-sided rant AGAINST tchoukball.

with that out of the way...

WHAT THE TCHOUK?

seriously. after my first time playing the game, it reminded me of chess. u have to plan ur player placement properly so as to use the three passes to get close enough to the goal. then you can't move with the ball(at least our teacher didn't allow us to), and you can't intercept if u see that some opponent near you is going to get the ball. also, dropping the ball causes possession to change. do you know how restricting these rules are?! you got ur ball, and ur like, two steps too far from the goal to make a confident shot... and its an impassable distance. but if u shoot, and miss, the opponent gains a point. wha-? and you can't intercept passes... seriously? i can only stand there helplessly as the opponent gets the ball? wow. and dropping the ball changes the ball? have you seen the size of that thing? its like using chopsticks to pick up a pea. frustrating and potentially stroke-inducing.

to be honest, this game is as far from a team sport as i know. to my primitive and stereotypical mind, a team sport is an activity(see, activity. u actually are ACTIVE) which involves skill, reflexes, physical ability, cooperation, and flow. flow... means the pacing, the speed of the games. look at soccer. basketball. hockey. these team games all have one thing in common; they're competitive and fast-paced. thats what team sports are about! working together effectively and efficiently in the heat of the moment.

tchoukball... has no flow. i mean, maybe, if u do find some reason to embrace and love this game(sorry eve), maybe u can be familiar enough to play a smooth flowing game. but to be honest, at our level, having never played tchoukball before, its an unnecessarily complicated and slow paced game. u need to calm down and find where your players are, and as long as they're in a good position, u can just pass. there's no faking out, there's no distracting, there's no reflex for intercepting. no matter how bad or obvious the pass, u can only watch helplessly as it lands into the guy next to you's arms.

and the scoring system. seriously? you give the other team a point if we miss? how nonsensical and unfair. it doesn't encourage enthusiasm, it encourages the developing of a tactical sniper's aim. to get the correct angle to shoot the ball so the rebound will be uncatchable. one word... no, TWO words. fucking dumb.

hey, you can say its a non-contact game, its a tactical game, its a slow-paced game, its a thinking game.... if i want all that i'll be grabbing ivory-carved, horse-shaped chess pieces, not a ball. to put it nicely, its a game that discourages newcomers with its excessive and superfluous rules. it requires higher-level thinking and tactical deployment that are rarely seen in other sports. to put it frankly, its a game that tries too hard to stand out by doing the opposite of everything popular sports are. there's reason why there's isn't an MP3 that DOESN'T play songs smoothly, or a car that CANNOT move. if basketball, rugby, american football, are all such popular games, why purposely try to be everything they're not? i can just imagine the guy who invented this game.

Tchoukball Inventor: 'i need to stand out! i shall invent a brand new game thats completely unique and different from all things fun! i shall make it slow and podding and have the rules bog down the flow of the game as much as possible!'

Random Passerby: 'dude, someone already invented that. its called chess. and even chess has a timer to make it go faster.'

Tchoukball Inventor: 'damnit! fine, then i shall add in... a ball! thats different from chess! and... i shall add in trampolines! everyone love's trampolines! and i shall make it a team sport so i can play it together with my friends! mmm... just need to find some friends...'

and, whats up with the name tchoukball? tchouk? what the hell is that? sounds like some sad, faraway alien race who haven't evolved enough to come up with a decent name for themselves. or is that the sound made when u score? wait, that's basketball.

so what i mean is, i don't get this game at all. AT ALL. all games have a primal, simple goal that draws people to them. basketball, soccer, hockey... to get the ball into the net. rugby, american football, baseball... to get the ball to a certain area. even solo sports, golf, archery... to get the ball or arrow to a hole or a bullseye. its a very basic and simple attraction. tchoukball... bounce the ball off a trampoline and hope to God no one catches it.

and why the fucking trampoline?! seriously?!

in a nutshell, WHAT THE TCHOUK?

P.S. lol, i ended up not talking bout teacher's day rehearsal at all. nvm, i'll blog it after the performance itself.