So I wrote recently with a mixture of admiration and apathy about my experience at the rodeo. Watching men attempt to ride a raging bull or bucking horse was alternately silly and terrifying.
Well. Now imagine my excitement at watching men heave a rock. Not a baseball into a strike zone. Not a football at a sprinting, zigzagging target. Just pick up a rock. And throw it. As far as possible. Can a sport get more primitive than that?
But here's the deal. It's an oddly shaped 138 pound stone. When you lift it, if you can lift it, with arms extended straight overhead, you can not, if you want to survive, drop it.
If you do get the rock up there, you now run, or stagger a few yards to the foul line. An experienced thrower does a nifty little jig right at the line, allowing him to propel the rock from high overhead while his feet stop just short of the line.
Good throws range from 9' to 11' or so. Over 12' is rare. The all-time record is 14'6". It doesn't sound like much until you watch big beefy looking guys stagger under the weight. Style is useless, but technique helps.
This is Steintossen, Stone Throwing, at the Ohio Swiss Festival in Sugarcreek. It is a raw, simple, powerful, and visceral contest between a man and a rock. The men do okay, some of them. But I think the rock wins.
Well. Now imagine my excitement at watching men heave a rock. Not a baseball into a strike zone. Not a football at a sprinting, zigzagging target. Just pick up a rock. And throw it. As far as possible. Can a sport get more primitive than that?
But here's the deal. It's an oddly shaped 138 pound stone. When you lift it, if you can lift it, with arms extended straight overhead, you can not, if you want to survive, drop it.
If you do get the rock up there, you now run, or stagger a few yards to the foul line. An experienced thrower does a nifty little jig right at the line, allowing him to propel the rock from high overhead while his feet stop just short of the line.
Good throws range from 9' to 11' or so. Over 12' is rare. The all-time record is 14'6". It doesn't sound like much until you watch big beefy looking guys stagger under the weight. Style is useless, but technique helps.
This is Steintossen, Stone Throwing, at the Ohio Swiss Festival in Sugarcreek. It is a raw, simple, powerful, and visceral contest between a man and a rock. The men do okay, some of them. But I think the rock wins.
3 comments:
Ah yes, the Swiss Festival. Something I never attended although I lived in Holmes County for 45 years! So is this YOU tossing the pebble?
Disclaimer: The original picture was not from Sugarcreek, but from Switzerland. The new picture is an anonymous participant in the 2007 Ohio Swiss Festival. And no, smarty pants, neither one is me.
The gals that throw their stone is who scare me!
But don't tell 'em!
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