Muggle Quidditch

[SpeedRacer]

Once upon a time it was a made up sport in J.K. Rowling's head... now it has nationally recognised rules in Australia. Basically the game involved running around on a 100m (or yard) field, throwing balls dodgeball style, a lot of stop/starting, dodging balls, tag, and throwing balls through hoops.

The thing is, I signed up for it.

So what should I do to train? I was thinking suicides and some medicine ball work but I don't really know where to start. My ability with the medicine ball makes about 12.5kg the max weight I can handle in ball form.

[caithnard]

I played quidditch in high school (for credit, for english class!). I'm not sure how our rules differed from what you play down in Australia, but this is what we did:

Most of us played ultimate frisbee, and we based our practices on what we did for ultimate. So it was mostly running, both for endurance and for speed and, yeah, we did more suicides than was probably necessary. We also did agility drills, practicing sharp turns and that sort of thing. I was a chaser/keeper, so I don't really remember what the other positions did. As a chaser, I think improving hand-eye coordination is important. If you can get somebody to play catch with you (or better yet, play catch while running down the field). We had a drill in ultimate called pass-and-go that we did a lot in quidditch practice. It's helpful even if you can't get your hands on the same ball you use for quidditch, just kick a soccer ball or throw a frisbee--it's more about knowing how to aim for where someone's going then it is about the ball-skills. I'm not sure how heavy your quaffle is (we use volleyballs), but I never found any need to specifically work on arm strength.

Oh, and if you don't mind looking like an idiot, practicing running and throwing balls while holding a broom will help.