Nerd Fitness, meet Johnball.

[Nannoo]

Hello everyone!
 
I want to introduce to you a sport that I began playing about a year ago and that I love with all of my heart.  This sport is called Johnball.
 
Johnball is relatively new, having been invented in 2005 by some friends in Lakeville, Minnesota while they were in middle school.  It started when they were bored one day, and they played it all through high school.  When they graduated from high school, the friends brought Johnball to their own respective universities all throughout the midwest.  This is how I found out about it; one of the friends goes to my college and brought it here.
 
The simplest way to describe Johnball is this: dodgeball with bats.  It gets much more complicated, but that is the core of Johnball.  Players hit these balls at each other with these bats.  There are literally an infinite number of possible "gametypes," but here are my personal favorites:
 
Free for All
This is the most basic gametype, typically played first in a "session."  Players each have a specified number of lives.  If a player gets hit by a ball (really if they touch a ball for any reason) they lose one life.  This includes accidentally hitting yourself, kicking a ball, falling on a ball, etc.  The only part of your body that does not count if hit is the hand that is holding your bat.  Once a player loses all of their lives, they are "out."  The last player with lives remaining is the "winner."
 
Notes
Like I said, this is the most basic gametype in Johnball.  This is generally the first one that we play when we get together, as well as the type that we use to introduce new people to the game.  One thing we've noticed, at least in our chapter, is that newbies tend to win their first game.  This has held true almost every single time we have a single new person play with us.  If we have several new people, it's almost guaranteed that one of them will win.  This is only something that I've seen or heard of in our chapter, so I don't know about any others.
 
Medusa
Medusa (or "Deuce Meduse", as we call it here) is an interesting spin-off of Free for All.  Each player starts with two lives.  Once a player has lost those two lives, they must drop their bat and become a "Medusa."  This means that the player cannot take any more steps.  The player has two things that they can do: kick balls at people, or catch balls hit by "humans."  If a Medusa kicks a ball and hits a person who is still in, that person loses one life.  If a Medusa catches a ball in the air that a person has hit, the Medusa comes back in the game with one life and the person loses one life.  To clarify, if a Medusa kicks a ball and hits a person, it does not do anything beneficial to that Medusa except give them the satisfaction of hitting somebody.  No lives are gained unless a Medusa catches a ball in the air off of a human's bat.  If a Medusa catches a ball kicked by another Medusa, this does not count for anything at all.  Medusas may only move as if they are carrying a basketball in a game of Basketball; that is, with a pivot foot, and without walking.  Medusas may also dive for a ball if they so choose.
 
Notes
Medusa sucks to play when it's windy, but it's my favorite because even if you're the first person to become a Medusa, you could still win the game.  It's also really funny when a Medusa kicks a ball and hits one of the last two people who are still in, ending the game.
 
Bank of Lives
This gametype is one that can be played with any number of "teams" with any number of people on each team.  It may also be played in what we call "doubles", which is just teams of two.  Each team or partnership shares a specified number of lives among them.  This means that if three people are sharing five lives, one of those three people could lose all five lives and lose the game for their entire team.  
 
Notes
This is always a fun game to play to get people together who usually wouldn't talk to each other, or are too shy to talk to people without some sort of catalyst.  It's also fun to make fun of the teammate who loses the most lives
 
Last but not least: Detonation
This game is also team-based, with two teams.  Each team starts with two balls, each a different color.  The balls must correspond with each other, which means that each team must have the same colored balls .  To clarify this further, if one team has a green ball and a yellow ball, the other team must have the same.  The object of the game for each team is to make the two balls of the same color touch each other.  So if we are to use the previous example, one team wants to touch the two green balls together and the other team wants to touch the yellow balls together.  Each person has one life.
 
Notes
This is a really tiring gametype because of all the running that goes along with it.  However, it is definitely in my top 5.  Generally each team kind of splits into groups: defense, aggressive defense, offense.  The defense will stay back with the ball that the other team is trying to get.  They are in charge of keeping that ball safe from the other team.  Anyone who is in the aggressive defense group will attack the other team's offense group, trying to get the ball so that they control both of the other team's balls.  The offensive group will attack the other team's defense with the ball that they want to touch.  Depending on how many people get out on your team, it can be quite tiring trying to chase the balls around.

 

There are 3 major rules in Johnball.  Follow these three rules and you will be golden.

1. Honesty.  This is number one because Johnball is completely self-regulated.  If you get hit, even a little bit, you need to be honest and count it.  If you don't, you're just a big poopy-head.  Plus it's pretty obvious if a ball hits you and you don't call it out.  People will be able to tell, and they won't be happy.  However, if you see someone get hit and not call it out, don't call them out on it.  The point of Johnball is to have fun and make friends, and calling people out only causes arguments.  It's not fun for anyone.  So why not just call out your hits?  It's much easier than yelling about it.
2. Sportsmanship.  This goes hand in hand with honesty, and it's pretty self-explanatory: don't be a dick and everyone will be happy.
3. Documentation/Friendship.  We've combined two into one here, because we don't know which one is more important.  Documentation matters because of the fact that Johnball is relatively unknown.  The more pictures and videos we take, the more the good word can be spread.  As for friendship... well, do you really need an explanation?

 
Ok, that got a lot longer than I expected.  However, I still have a couple of things to talk about.  First off, how do we start games?  Well, here's the John of Johnball, the Johnfather himself, to explain that to you.

 

 

Here is the Johnball highlight video, which, if you are an avid reddit user, you may have seen on /r/videos recently.

 

 

Here is an imgur album with my favorite Johnball pictures: http://imgur.com/a/aC9Gu#0

 

And finally, here is the official Johnball website:  http://www.playjohnball.com

 

Let me know what you think; any questions, comments, etc. are welcome!  Here is the International Johnball Association Facebook page.  

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Nannoo