Sports Basement

Hybrid sports: teaching old sports new tricks

by Jessica Blomstrom, web editor

Are you tired of running the same old loop around the park every day? Maybe you think you can’t play just because you’re a grown-up, or maybe you’re burnt out on the sports you’ve been playing since you were six? Hold on to your sweatbands, because your fitness options are about to expand exponentially. Welcome to the wondrous world of hybrid sports!

Disc Golf
Disc golf is the magical love child of Frisbee and golf, combining the best parts of the former (the lack of polo shirts and sock gaiters) and the best parts of the latter (hot sun and a cold beer) and melding them into the chillest sport ever. There are courses all over the Bay, so there’s no excuse not to give disc golf a spin (pun entirely intended). Check out www.sfdiscgolf.org for more info on the San Francisco disc golf scene, or www.ebdgc.org for the East Bay equivalent.

Soccer-Tennis
Chances are, you played soccer as a kid. Maybe you weren’t the best, but it was fun and it’d be amazing if you still had a fraction of the stamina you had back then, right? Enter soccer-tennis. It’s got all the fancy footwork of soccer, without all the dashing about. It’s played on a tennis court with teams of two, so you’ll have the space to show off those sweet passes you’ve been practicing since you were a kid. Find your local game at www.soccertennis.org.

Underwater Hockey
Now, maybe you’re thinking soccer-tennis isn’t quite enough. You want to try something truly worthy of a raised eyebrow. How about underwater hockey? It’s exactly what it sounds like – hockey in a pool, only with smaller, hand-held hockey sticks and a weighted puck. Both San Francisco Underwater Hockey and San Jose’s Club Puck make it easy to start playing – all you need to bring is a swimsuit and a towel, and they’ll provide the rest. Check out dates and times at www.sfuwh.org or www.clubpuck.us.

Unicycle Basketball
Alright, so you’re too wild and crazy for even underwater hockey to satisfy. Why not take it up a notch by combining a traditional sport like, say, basketball, with something way more difficult to master, like riding a unicycle? Unicycle basketball has a pretty big following right here in the East Bay – in fact, the Berkeley Revolution uni-basketball team won the nationals last year, and came in second at the world championships. You can watch them play (and maybe pick up a few tips and tricks) every Tuesday night at Strawberry Creek Park. Details can be found at www.unibball.net.

These are not your average gym class offerings – hybrid sports are a whole new level of fitness, limited only by your imagination. So get out there and invent your own mash-up sport, and be sure to tell us all about it!

Jessica Blomstrom is a Sports Basement web editor, and enjoys getting lost on purpose and re-discovering civilization after a journey fraught with terrors and bug bites unimaginable.

Posted on 6/20/2012 in All Stores, Other Sports | Comments (1)

One comment:

Matt Vickers June 25th, 2012 at 4:59 pm
How about Roller Soccer?! Created in this very city and home to the majority of Team USA who are the current World Cup Champions.