Week One - Dodgeball

Week One

To ease myself into this journey, I thought I'd give Dodgeball a go. My ball control has always been satisfactory (no pun intended) and if Vince Vaughn could do it, I might have a shot.
Oh how wrong I was.

Turning up to practice, I was slightly disappointed not to have a wheelchair bound coach with a bag of spanners and hammers, instead a springy 20 something year old with bags of enthusiasm and a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
My heart also sank when, looking round the group of 13, I was one of only 3 girls. If you've never played Dodgeball before, believe me when I tell you it's a sausage fest of lads who are potentially all on anger management courses.

Dodgeball is a 12 person game, 6 members on each teams side of court, with 3 balls in the middle. In simple terms, the aim of the game is to get all members of the other team out, by hitting them with a ball or catching a ball thrown by them, whilst staying on your side of the court. If you are 'outted', you can only get back in if someone on your team catches a ball.
It is much simpler than it sounds.

To begin the session we began a few practice games, I assumed friendly matches to get us warmed up, but I think it was more along the lines of testing your pain barrier.
We then started learning some techniques - it turns out there is more to learn than Dodge, Dip, Dive, Duck and Dodge. If you've got the arm strength for it, an overhead throw is your best move and then you must spend the rest of the game moving around your side of the pitch like some crazy monkey, trying not to get whacked by a flying ball. This info may have been useful before the first game.
Come the second lot of games, I was confident I had this down. I'd got dodging the ball down to a T and on my first throw I had someone out. This was all well and good until, in true Hollywood movie style, I found myself the last member of my team against all 3 balls.
I'll just say it didn't end well.

Talent Rating 3/10 - but a hell of a lot of fun!
WARNING - THIS GAME WILL GIVE YOU DRY HANDS.