Chapter 14 – Footy, Footy, Footy, Footy, Footy, Footy, Footy, Footy

In which our hero gets educated in the ways of the local sport...

Today I learned about Australian Rules Football. There was a little seminar put on by the AFL (the league) and the Gold Coast Suns (the local team). They taught us how to do a hand ball, which they do instead of throwing. You hold the ball in one hand, with one sort of pointy end facing you. Whichever hand that is, the left for me, then that foot is a bit forward too. Then you make a fist with your dominant hand (right for me), with your thumb on the outside, and thwonk the ball out of your other hand using the flat part of the fist created by your thumb and pointer finger. If you use the inside of your hand, or the heel or whatever, then it counts as a throw, and probably you lose points or something. We paired up into partners to practice, and my practice buddy was my new engineering friend from Vietnam. I forgot to mention, as well, that as soon as we got out from under the sheltered stands, and on to the field, it started drizzling. Then it picked up, so we moved back under the stands to practice the our hand ball technique. We were in two rows along the walkway at the top of the stands, so we only had about 5' between us. And if I missed catching the ball, it would go right past me, and bounce down to the ground. Luckily, there was a rail that would stop me from going the same way.

Pretty soon the rain let up, so we moved back on to the track to practice our kicks. We were about the width of the track apart. The way to kick is to hold the ball vertically in both hands, with the laces pointing to where you want it to go. Then, hips straight, legs straight, you basically walk forward, drop the ball when your kicking foot is coming, then give it a boot. You're not supposed to run up or anything, or try to do a fancy curvy kick. Just go straight. Mine mostly worked. Some went slightly wild. As with the hand ball, they had us try first with our dominant leg, then with the other. It was surprisingly not difficult kicking with my left.

Next we moved out into the field, and did a quick round of “Bomb the Teachers”, where the instructors stood out on the field, and we all kicked balls at them, and they didn't move. Needless to say, none of them got hit. Then one of the players from the Suns kicked the ball as far as he could, and we tried to match it. Only about two people managed it.

We then moved on to bouncing, which is necessary every 15m. You basically bounce the ball off the ground as you're running, similar to a single dribble in basketball, except the the ball isn't totally round. It's like a North American football, but the ends are less pointy. But the whole thing is less round than a rugby ball, I think. Anyway. It didn't always go as planned. Sometimes the ball bounced right back to me, and sometimes just ran amok. I couldn't figure out what I was doing differently. It may have had something to do with the soggy ground.

The rain had kind of picked up again by then, and the seminar was over anyway. We went back to the stands to gather our stuff, and they cave us a little Gold Coast Suns prize pack with a lanyard and a key chain and a pen. I was really good fun, and I'm glad I went.

Something else I forgot to mention is that they play on an oval pitch, and the goal posts are four big poles on either end. It looks kind of like quidditch. But without the brooms, because this is real life. Unfortunately. Anyway. The only way to score is to kick the ball through the goal posts. If it goes between the two tallest ones in the middle it's six points, or between a tall one and a shorter one on either side it's one point. There's no touch downs or throwing the ball through. Only kicking.

Then me and my friend from Denmark went for some lunch, and then had another go through the swag stalls. They were mostly packed up. What she really wanted was the headphones from the Windows 8 stall, but they were out. We then ended up in the Uni Bar, where we saw a sign saying you get a free t-shirt if you buy a certain beer or cider. So we each got one, and hung out for a bit, and discussed various things like why the alcohol rules are so different in Denmark than home, and here, probably, and what by our standards would be lax rules seem to work there without any problems. Maybe they just have more common sense. And other things, too, like how she could wrangle herself a position in an arctic mission, because I was telling her about the awesome missions that Annie goes on.

I managed to get home by 4:30, I think. I rode up the hill again, and it pretty much killed me. I seriously hope I can get used to it.

On an unrelated note, I finally managed a picture of a koala crossing sign from inside the bus. There's no pictures of the football seminar because I left my phone in my bag so it didn't get lost in any running and jumping around that might happen, and also it was raining, and also I was occupied because we were always doing stuff.  You can look up high-lights reels on YouTube to see all the things I'm talking about.