The coronavirus outbreak made people retreat to their homes, which means spending so much time with your families you eventually get bored with each other. One family on Instagram had a series of games such as seeing who gets to fly their paper airplanes the farthest to amuse themselves. How was family game night during this pandemic? By now, you should have discovered an amazing game that everyone will love. Otherwise, you’ll get stuck with boring board games and mindless family banters.
But have you heard about weird and strange recreational activities? Do you know that there is a competition for extreme ironing? Think of it as competing for the most boring household task ever—ironing clothes. Even a garage door repair task is more exciting than ironing wrinkled clothes, but some people actually take pride in this activity.
Extreme Ironing
The Extreme Ironing Bureau said that extreme ironing is the latest dangerous sport. Basically, the bureau chooses a location where the competition will happen. It can be in the forest, in the sky, in the middle of Midtown Manhattan, in waterfalls, on kayaks, in caves, etc. The participants go there to iron clothes as fast and as many as they can. This outdoor activity originated in Britain.
Wife Carrying
This activity involves a man carrying his wife while going through an obstacle course. The rules are simple: the course must be 253.5 meters long, the course needs one dry and two water obstacles, the wife has to weigh at least 49 kilograms, and the man gets a 15-minute penalty if he drops his wife. Whoever finishes will get a beer in his wife’s weight.
Octopush
Also known as underwater hockey, this is the pool version of the above-the-ground sports. The puck, however, has to weigh at least three pounds so it will glide easily on the bottom of the pool. The participants have to wear snorkels and foot-long sticks to fight for the puck and push it toward the goal. This is a popular activity in England.
Shin Kicking
This activity started in the 17th century. Back then, the participants wore steel-toed boots. Today, the rules are fairer. The participants will wear soft-toed shoes, and they can also put a bunch of straw into their pant legs to soften the blow. If you still don’t know what the participants do, go back to the name of the activity. Participants kick each other’s shins until someone cries “sufficient!”
Cheese Rolling
If you know zorbing, this activity is similar to that. Cheese rolling involves racing down a hill after a wheel of Gloucester cheese. Of course, the cheese will get a one-second head start before the participants have to run after it. Whoever gets the wheel wins. While you may not have a hill in your house, you can find any elevated and sloped surface to try this activity.
Chess Boxing
There are 11 rounds in chess boxing. The rounds alternate between chess and boxing. It’s a hybrid that comes from these two traditional past times. The winner of chess boxing is determined through checkmate or knockout, whichever comes first. It’s both a mental and physical game, so make sure your bodies are ready for this.
Toe Wrestling
Think of this as arm wrestling, but with toes. On a “toedium,” the wrestlers link their big toes to pin the opponent’s foot to the ground. There’s even a World Toe Wrestling Championship in case you want to make a career out of this after the pandemic. Fans of the activity even asked the Olympics committee to include toe wrestling in the competitions, but the committee denied their appeal.
Hobbyhorsing
Think of this as an actual equestrian competition but instead of horses, participants (mostly young girls) use sticks with stuffed fabric horse heads on the end of the stick. You can definitely do this at home with the kids. They will enjoy galloping around the obstacle course, which you can make with chairs and other things around the house. In the real hobbyhorsing activity, the “horses” have names, breeds, and specialties. They treat these “horses” like the real ones.
Who knows what kind of activity you can invent while staying at home for now? Try to keep everyone sane by thinking of ways to amuse the family. Whether it’s toe wrestling, chess boxing, or extreme ironing, you should have as much fun as possible given that everything outside your home is chaotic. At the very least, turn this pandemic into a fun vacation where you and the rest of the family think of ways to entertain each other.
