Jugger

Today I discovered a sport involving dog skulls and hitting people with foam swords.

Its called Jugger.

My friend Eli, the one I went skiing with, came over to theoretically play D and D.  Unfortunately,  nobody else came so we resorted to fighting with swords in the park.  We did a sort of quest thing, then he had to use the restroom so we headed back to take a short break.  My mom and my sister had gotten home and were going to the same park (They chose to drive the entire three blocks) so we went to meet them at the park.  When we got there, we started heading towards where they were playing whatever they were, and in front of us we saw some people with foam swords and stuff.  They started setting up a game and we thought it seemed interesting so we asked them about it.  In reality, we just sat there until they talked to us, since we're both shy but shhh...  Anyways one of them explained the rules, we said we were both 13 in May which was close enough to old enough so when two people left, it was our duty to join.  So the rules for Jugger:

In Jugger, the goal of the game is to get the dog skull, which starts in the center, to the hole thing of the other team.  Each team has one "Quick", who is unarmed therefore weak, but is the only one allowed to touch the dog skull therefore the strongest.  They can also have a maximum of one person handling the chain things.

Those chain things. Yup.

There are five people on each team, so that leaves three people to choose weapons from two short-swords, things that resemble giant q-tips, called q-tips (I'm not kidding) huge pokey things, and a sword and shield.  Each game is played in two 100 beat rounds, beats coming around every second.  Whoever gets the most beats wins!  So the rules for getting down.  If you are hit by the ball, not the chain part, you are down for eight beats then get up.  If any other weapon hits you, you are down for five beats then get up.  When you are down, put your weapons down, one hand behind your back and kneel.  If someone with some sort of sword puts their sword on you and says "Pin", you can keep counting until you get to your number, but you can't get back up until they release their sword.  There are two illegal places to hit.  If you are hit on the head, you say HEAD Head head and aren't down.  If you are hit on the hand up to your wrist you say HAND Hand hand and aren't down.  Also, there's a game day at Utah Park on next Sunday at noon.  They are looking to make a youth program so if enough kids show up, then they could!

Also, the dog skull is because the game is based off of the movie Salute of the Jugger where the game is played in a post apocalypse world much more brutally and with an actual dog skull.  Fun, I know.  The dog skull is really just a foam dog skull... much better.

Image Credit:  My Mom, http://www.taringa.net/posts/offtopic/13212156/Jugger--el-deporte-definitivo.html