Essentials
Goal
To take an object to a specific location.
Challenge
To catch/pass the ball without moving your feet and to navigate without touching the floor.
Space
A setup that allow players to move without touching the floor within different routes.
Players
At least 2 teams with 2 players on each team.
– Optional: Referee.
Props
Ball (usually a tennis ball), Timer.
– Optional: Something to demark each team’s home base.
Modifiers
The floor is lava or not.
Rules
Inspired by the Yamakazi movie “Sons of the Wind”, the Parkour Ball consists in a match between two teams to try to reach each others home base with the game ball. The main rule is that you’re not allowed to move your feet when you have the ball.
Players will start in their respective home bases. The ball is placed in the middle of the game area and when the game starts who ever reaches the ball first can have it.
- The floor is lava.
- Your team scores 1 point everytime you reach the opposite team’s home base with the ball.
- You can’t go inside your own home base to protect it and there can only be one player inside the opposite’s team home base.
- If you fall on the lava, you must walk back to your home base and restart.
- If the ball falls on the lava, it goes back in the game to the opposite team player which is closer to his/her own home base.
- You can’t snap the ball out of the opposite players hand, but you can block their way to receive and pass the ball without making physical contact.
This is a game for interaction and team work. Keep in mind that the opposite players are not your enemies, but your friends or just people challenging you to give your best. Have fun and be careful with each other.
Benefits
Physical
Coordination
In order to get good throws and good catches, one must coordinate accuracy, touch and reaction time with eye focus. We can relate this with Parkour challenges involving Cat Leaps, Vaults and Jumps to Re-grab. It’s not common in Parkour to catch flying objects, but often we gotta catch ourselves and use our hands to absorb and push our weight at the same time. Even when we land, the timing has everything to do with the efficiency of the technique to absorb impact and stabilize our body. Developing this ability can affect positively your skills when it comes to body contact with the environment.
Power
The advantage in this game comes with how fast you can navigate through the space and place yourself to receive the ball. Power can really help you with speed and shortcuts along the way. This is definitely not the right moment to develop your Power, but to figure out which techniques you can adapt and perform under pressure using your Power.
Technical
Notes
As you’re looking for efficiency to get to where you want, you will choose to perform techniques that can help you with that. Usually Jumps, Steps and Balancing are the most common technical groups when playing Parkour Ball, but Climbing and Swinging can also take part depending on the environment and on your strategy.
You can plan a route to get to the ball as fast as possible when the game is about to start, but during it adaptation will be your best friend to find unique paths and locations to receive the ball and get to the other team’s home base.
Conceptual
Awareness
Social: Watch out not only for the sake of the game but for each other’s safety avoiding physical contact.
Self: Feedback yourself about which skills you could improve in order to perform better technically and strategically. Find out how and try to work/apply them.
Environmental: Scan the environment everytime in order to find the most efficient routes and locations that you can get to.
Utility
When we’re under pressure, the most natural thing to do is to go with what we’re already comfortable with. What we’ve been practicing the most. This is a moment to test which techniques you can apply without second tries.
Creativity
One of the best moments to be Creative in Parkour is when you’re solving a problem instantly. You have a reason to move in this very specific way and to adapt your techniques without even knowing what you’re doing. The next part of the process is to be aware of what you did and see if you can put it inside your “movement box”.
Momentum
This game plays a very unique roll on Momentum manipulation because at the same time that you move through the space as quick as possible, you also want to stop and stabilize yourself to get the ball and throw it to another player. You don’t have to stick any jump, but you do have to stop yourself facing towards where the ball is, which turns into a natural opportunity to guide your energy as you land with some rotation. You can understand better the concepts of Momentum by checking the article Finding Flow – Macro-transitions.
Focus
Talking about the physical aspect of Focus, your peripheral vision can help you to keep track in what’s happening next to you while you move through the space or wait for the ball.
Talking about your Focus on the goal, make sure to remember how to win. You gotta get the ball and one of your players inside the opposite team’s home base.
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