Dodgeball, also known for its literal translation as Prisoner Ball, like Quemado, Mate, Mata sapos and Mata Gente, among others, is a popular game all over the world and it is common for it to begin to be practiced at school, during hours of physical exercise or also in recesses where students look for games to distract and entertain themselves. Meanwhile, nowadays it has also become a popular sport that attracts fans and the public, in the United States, there is even a professional league in which the championships of the NDL Professional League game are played.
Two teams compete whose opposing players must touch each other with a ball to be eliminated
It consists of the dispute of two teams that can be made up of between four to nine players and is played on a rectangular court. To start the game, the players of each team must be located behind the line arranged at the ends of the rectangle that marks the court, while when the referee blows the whistle all the players must run towards the middle of the field of play. where there are several balls that must be picked up by the players. The player who catches a ball must with it throw it against an opponent because the idea is to touch it so that it is eliminated from the game.
The team that manages to keep the most players and of course that can eliminate the most competitors will win.
A native of Africa where he had a warrior ritual end
Although there is no specific determination in this regard, it is believed that this game is originally from Africa, where it was part of a warrior ritual carried out by some tribes of this continent. At that time what were used were not balls but stones and the mission was to exercise the troops to achieve a good performance against the enemy.
But of course, the question is how it became popular in other continents…. The legend around the practice says that a missionary from the United Kingdom, during the 19th century, was a privileged observer of the ritual and who ended up spreading it in his country and also decided to introduce the exchange of the ball for the stone, which of course was a less harmful and more playful element.
Photos: iStock - tigrilla / tigrilla
