Wheel Gymnastics, second only to juggling and veganism.

HOLD. THE. PHONE. Did you guys already know about this?  It seems to have swept the globe beneath the collective radar. It popped up while I was researching “popular sports of Finland.” It looks weird, and oddly kinky. It’s Rhönrad. Wheel gymnastics.

Born in Germany, it made its debut to the international masses during the 1936 Olympics Opening Ceremonies in Berlin. Knowing that the guest of highest honor had lots of propagandistic cameras rolling at the time, it must have been caught on film, but actual footage of that performance has so far eluded me. (more…)

One of Finland’s national pastimes is Nordic Stick Walking. You basically walk on dry ground mimicking cross-country skiing, using specially modified ski poles with rubber tips.  Originally developed in the 1930s as a training technique for some pretty bad-ass skiers during the off-season, it has become a widespread popular activity year round.  And the ladies are crazy for it.
 
It’s not officially recognized as a sport, and if you lived in my neighborhood, you’d see why.  While it can be a good work-out, Nordic Walking is SO not cool to the under-40 crowd.  However, it’s been warmly embraced by the over-50s who tool around in their treaded boots and retired fur coats.  If you are over 80, you pretty much limp around with the poles dragging behind by the straps as if you were walking a couple of blind dogs.  But if you are pushing 90, you use them everywhere and merely to keep upright.
 
One sunny Fall weekend when a friend Hannah was visiting from the States, the sun was out, and a swarm of matching couples were striding along the sea, clacking their sticks with synchronized confidence.  It somehow looked like walking on the moon, or surreally reminiscent of something from Edward Scissorhands’ neighborhood.  It was both odd and fascinating. Hannah asked me if I owned my own sticks, but I said, No way, are you kidding?  I would look so stupid.
 

So for now, I support other people using them.  I mean, it’s fine for them, but I can’t pull that off.
 
Here are some other popular sports in Finland that utilize sticks:
 
Ice Hockey
Field Hockey
Salibandy (Floor Ball)
Javelin Throwing
Pole Vaulting
Fishing
Archery
Golf, golf, golf! 

No Talking in Hockey.

I’m an American living in Finland for the past two years.  Maybe you’ve heard some of the Finnish stereotypes–for example, that rowdy drinking and the occasional bar fight are a big part of the social culture.  Everyone loves sauna.  And Finns don’t talk much.  I can tell you that they are all true/not true.

So I recently went to a hockey game with a woman from work who had an extra ticket, Jokers against some other people.  I can’t say I follow sports, but I like a live event as much as the next person, and I am particularly fond of the sound it makes when one guy smashes the face of another guy into the plexiglass.

I understand that going to games is a social thing.  You eat some dogs, you cheer, you talk shit.   But about 10 minutes in, I realize I’m sitting with A Woman.  Sure, I’m a woman.  But she had turned into some other kind of stereotype I was not at all prepared for.  She had the odd, genetically recessive gift of yap, and all I could think of was, “So are you going to shut up and watch the game, or are we going to have a problem?”

I appreciated her explaining the rules to me, a foreigner, but I was pretty sure she was making them up.  She kept changing them, “No, no, no, I’m wrong about that, they can hit it from there if that other guy is behind him.  But not from that line.”   What? It’s hockey. You hit the puck into the thing.  I get it.

After she had exhausted all possible combinations of rules, she went on to explain the delicate make-up of sports psychology.  She seemed to have a keen understanding as to why players moved the way they did, their formations, why they push and spit.  Everything they did was attributed to lack of confidence.  Or an abundance of confidence.  Or sometimes, just a big psych-out.  I told her I was pretty sure they really just wanted to move fast and score. 

She then compared this game to the last one she went to.  Maybe it was The Blues.  Maybe it was JYP.   She couldn’t remember who won, or any spectacular plays. But it was better than this game.  And it was 16 YEARS AGO.  Which is what I guess made her the resident expert.  

When the game ended I cheered, mostly for its being over.  I had found it equally as exhausting to ignore the gab completely,  as it was to politely nod and say “yeah” from time to time.  What happened to sullen and quiet?  What happened to the Finnish economy of words?  It was yet another stereotype in this great land that had its consistent inconsistencies.  Much like its grammar.

As we filed out, my friend asked, did I want to go someplace for some dinner?  No.  I only wanted to grab a quick slice of SHUT IT, and get the hell home to the sanctity of my tiny overpriced northern European alcove apartment, where I would have a cold beer and a hot sauna waiting for me. 

Because, crap.  I’d take a bar fight to that any day.