_valerian

Yesterday was one of our jr high’s sports days. The sports available to play were Basketball (ugh), Soccer (even worse), or the fine art that is dodgeball. See, I am not an athletic kind of guy. I just don’t get sports. But I do enjoy “games”, like badminton, pool, bowling, golf, and from yesterday to forever, I like dodgeball.

First, you have to know where I am coming from. My elementary school never taught us dodgeball. Instead we had “Garbage wars” which was a game where the gym was divided in half with volleyball nets. Over the nets a few army surplus parachutes were draped, which prevented us from seeing the other side. Covering the floor were balls of various sizes and composition. They ranged from the volleyball sized big grey foam balls to small knit baseball sized bunches of rags. The point of the game was simple. Throw the “trash” over the barrier onto the other side. They were doing the same thing as well. Now that I am a teacher, I can clearly see the intent of this “lesson” which we usually had during our lunch period in the winter. Think about how much work this took to do. Not much. (Now I also realize why all my old teachers kept showing videos in class. DAMN that is easy to do) After a feverent battle, both sides would ask and ask which team won. The teacher would casually look over and make an estimation as to which side had the most balls on their ground. The results were usually constested.

While in Junior High we would sometimes play a game similar to dodgeball; WARBALL. This took up the entire gym, with two teams and a few dozen soft balls. The balls were foam with a thin grippy rubber cover. A baseball pitcher could fast-ball one into your face and you would barely feel it. However they were joys to throw and a well placed one against a head or back was a sight to see.

In High School my gym requirement was met with “Racket Sports”, which meant Tennis, badminton, pickleball and ping pong. Otherwise I was a nerd and an artist. Not much has changed, really.

So, while my dodgeball back ground was sorely lacking, I convinced some of the Senshu gym teachers to let me and Jason-sensei “assist” the various dodgeball teams. We were originally only supposed to play 2 games but the actual refs for dodgeball, an english teacher and the art teacher, let us stay on through all the matches.
Now, it took me a game or two to get the rules down. The two teams had about 4 kids at the back of each of the other’s sections of the court, to get the balls that went too far out. If you got hit (and I did, repeatedly) you became a go-getter in the out of bounds area. If you hit someone from the out of bounds area, you were back in the game. All the while there was only one ball to be used.
Jason was right on with his ball throwing (often hitting me), while I had this uncanny ability to throw the ball right between clumps of fearful 12 year old girls in their cowering groups. Their standard defensive move was to turn around and freeze. AND I STILL MISSED. It became apparent though, that the girls were the key to victory. They left the offense to the full-on 9th grade guys who threw fast and hard. (the first time I got hit it my glasses fell to the dirt, but that is because they were aiming at my glasses maybe.) Playing against the 7th graders was difficult, since they are so small and quick. When the dust settled, which ever team had the most remaining players won. Usually these were the girls, since the guys worked out their personal grudges against one another with the dodgeball.