In this episode of Unexpected Hobbies, the Estimator member Deniz uncovers his very random hobby: Kin-ball, the game in which four teams chase one big ball around the field.
The spring of 2014 was life changing for me. This was the time I’ve been to France as an exchange student, forced to learn cycling there and realized that no matter how far away you are, you can still be happy. Yet, none of these was the milestone of my early youth: it was my first kin-ball match…
Now, you might be asking: “What the heck is kin-ball?” That is the exact same question which occupied our minds the whole day then
Everything started on a cloudy school day; when a group of friends from my high school, including me, were in Brest, in Brittany, France. This day was a very special day for the exchange programme, because unlike the others, we had an activity called “kin-ball” on our daily program. Now, you might be asking: “What the heck is kin-ball?” That is the exact same question which occupied our minds the whole day then.
When the time had finally arrived, kin-ball turned out to be a sport in which three players hold a huge ball up, as Atlas carried the sky in the Greek mythology, and one player yells “omnikin” followed by one of three teams’ colour in French, and then hit that gigantic ball. The hitter intends to make the ball touch the ground before the players of the assigned team catch and raise the ball again to make their shot. So, pretty much like this:
I know, it sounds very awkward. And yes, it is. However, it was one of the funniest sport I have ever done. Think about the globe scene from Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Imagine that scene carried out with strategy and athleticism. That’s what we call kin-ball.
If you also want to enter the fantastic world of kin-ball, just search “kin-ball” on YouTube and enjoy the tremendous effort put into raising and hitting a huge ball
Later we were told that this is un sport collectif Québécois, has an international organisation and the P.E. teacher who taught us the game was actually a world champion in kin-ball. “Really? Seriously?” asked most of us, and probably you too. Yet, the actual question here is, years after, what do I have to do with this sport today? I could assert that the game is a hobby of mine and I play it regularly (once in every lifetime for now?) but it’s actually limited to watching epic kin-ball moments sometimes. If you also want to enter the fantastic world of kin-ball, just search “kin-ball” on YouTube and enjoy the tremendous effort put into raising and hitting a huge ball, as you can see below: