ESPN8 The Ocho’s Weekly Roundup: Bo-Taoshi and Kabaddi
Bo-Taoshi — “Part Capture the Flag, part World War Z”
I was browsing Reddit the other day, and stumbled upon this video, with no context whatsoever.
Needless to say, I had to investigate. I searched the Reddit comments for clues and ended up in a rabbit hole trying to understand what the hell was going on in this game called Bo-Taoshi.
The game’s origin is unknown, but it comes from Japan. It is played at Japanese schools around the country, literally sometimes between children. The most famous game is played at the National Defense Academy of Japan on its anniversary ever year, between teams of 150 new initiates playing for the honor of their battalion. On the field, each team of has a ~12 foot pole standing upright in its region, with 75 players defending it and the other 75 running with reckless abandon at the other team’s defensive formation.
The objective of the game — bring down the other team’s pole. This can be accomplished by whatever means necessary. If your team’s offensive force is able to drag the opposing team’s pole down to an angle 45 degree or less with the ground before they do the same to yours, you win.
Now when you look at the game, it literally looks like an PE class-style, unorganized brawl reminiscent of Sparta or The 300.
Look at this stuff — its truly wild.
Now we know where World War Z got the inspiration for this scene.
And while it looks like a face-kicking, shirt-ripping hodgepodge, there is actually an unbelievable amount of strategy. There are even positions!
On offense:
Springboard/Scrum: The offense’s first responders. These guys fly in and lay the groundwork like Victor meeting any of Eurotrip’s international female friends. They try to engage the ring of defenders, push in towards the pole, and sacrifice their flat backs as stepping stones to their incoming teammates to launch off of.
Pole Attackers: These are the acrobatic fools who come in a bit delayed and start just throwing themselves at the pole. They’re also the ones that, once they’ve flown in and landed on top of the defense, start hoisting each other up and try to pull the pole down from the top.
General Support Attackers: These guys are essentially the yoloers. They just run and try and knock down defensive players and clear room for the scrum. Sometimes they’ll see a defender engaged with another attacker and they’ll just come out of nowhere and blow someone up.
On defense:
Pole Support: The inner ring of defenders closest to the pole. They are tasked with utilizing their body weight and leverage to hold the pole in upright position.
Barrier: The next outer rings of defenders, radiating out from the Pole Support. These guys are trying to resist the scrum and pull down any aerial pole attackers that make it airborne to the pole.
Interference: These are the three dudes who are standing on the shoulders of the pole support homies. They’re tasked with hand-t0-hand combat with any pole attacker that make it to the pole.
The Ninja: The person on top of the pole and drop kicking the faces of any offensive players that get past interference. Their most important task is to constantly shift their weight on the top of the pole to counteract the push, from whichever direction it’s coming from.
The sport is obviously extremely dangerous, and footwear has been banned given the frequency of face-kicking that occurs. There are many anecdotes about it being seriously injurious, but I couldn’t find any actual statistics. Nevertheless, a sporting event we should all aspire to see some time in our lives.
Kabaddi — “Tag meets wrestling with a sprinkle of dodgeball (without the ball)”
Kabaddi is an Indian team sport that is equal parts ragtag and actually legit. In true ESPN8 The Ocho fashion, it has risen from a game played in dirt fields in villages in Southern India to a nationally televised sport that draws more television views than baseball.
The game was started in rural India, and funnily enough, my parents used to play with their friends in parks and such growing up — the same way we might have played 2-hand touch football.
When played officially, the court will look something like this.
The objective of the game is to score points by tagging or tackling players from the other team. Let me explain.
The game starts with 7 players on each side. The most basic part of the game is a simple game of tag. In alternating turns, each team will send a “raider” over the mid-line to the other side of the court. The raider has 30 seconds to make it back to his team’s side of the court. Before he comes back, however, he must either touch the Baulk Line (or past it) with one of his feet or hands, or a player on the opposite team. If the raider touches the Baulk Line and comes back to his side, he gets no points. If he isn’t able to touch the line at all in his 30 seconds, the other team gets a point, and he’s temporarily out of the game. Now the tagging is where it gets interesting. If the raider tags any players on the other team, and then gets back over the line, he wins points for his team, equal to however many players he tagged. So if he touched two players and scampered back to his side, he’d have scored two points for his team. Additionally, those two tagged players would be temporarily out of the game (like in dodgeball when you get hit).
So what happens if a defensive player is tagged? Then, that player should do everything in his power to keep the offensive player from getting back to his side. So the defensive player would immediately lunge at the raider and try to tackle/hold him down until the clock runs out. If the defensive player successfully tackles/holds down the raider, the defensive team scores a point, and the raider is temporarily out of the game.
The really tricky part of the game is how the other defenders make their decisions to tackle or not. So say one of their teammates got tagged (could be an arm, leg, whatever) — the other defenders then have to decide whether they should join the tagged defensive player in his tackling effort. If they succeed, the offensive player is out and the defensive team scores a point. If they don’t however, and the offensive player does make it back over — each defensive player who tried to tackle him (and therefore touched him) would be considered tagged. They would not only then be temporarily out, but they’d also have given the offensive team extra points.
You can see how this game becomes very “cat-and-mouse” like. At all times, the defenders want to be close enough to the attacker to strike at any time, but far enough away to be able to dodge any tag attempts. This makes for interesting strategy — often the defensive players will hold hands so that they always have a partner close by to join a tackle if needed, and will organize themselves in a W-pattern.
Notice how the white team is in a W-esque shape. The reason for this is that they’re trying to bait the red raider into trying to take the middle guy in the W. If he makes a big step towards him, the guys on the outside of the W (number 8 for example) will converge in and tackle him from behind before he can run back to his side.
The game typically is played for two 20 minute halves, and the team with more points at the end wins. There are a few additional ways to score:
Tag: what we have discussed earlier —as a raider, every member of the other team you tag before you successfully retreat to your side scores you a point.
Tackle: If a team successfully tackles/holds down the raider, they score one point, and the raider is out temporarily.
Bonus Line: In the diagram above, there is a bonus line. If the opposite team has 6 or 7 defenders left, and the raider is able to put one foot on or past the bonus line with the other foot in the air (i.e. all his weight is on the bonus line foot) and successfully retreat, he scores a point even if he didn’t tag anyone.
Super Tackle: If a team can tackle the raider with 3 or less defenders only, they get a bonus point, in addition to the tackle point.
Do-Or-Die Raid: If a team has two consecutive raids without tagging anyone of the opposite team successfully, the third raid is a “do-or-die raid.” If the raider doesn’t get a tag here, the defensive team gets a point, and the raider is out of the game temporarily until revived.
All-Out: If one team loses all of its members (i.e. the last one is tagged or tackled), the other team gets 2 extra points, and the game re-starts with all 7 teammates back in, 7v7.
Some other random rules:
Revivals: You can bring a teammate back in (like a catch in dodgeball) by either successfully tagging someone on the other team, or tackling the opposite raider. Also, if you tag more than one person on the other team, you can revive as many of your own players as you successfully tagged.
Out-of-Bounds: If a raider goes out of bounds before crossing back onto their side, that is considered a tackle by the defensive team. Similarly, if a defensive player steps out of bounds while avoiding a tag, they are considered tagged and out of the game. The complication comes after a tag has occured. On the diagram above, there are the regions on the outside of the court labeled “Lobby” (see the red parts below).
Once a tag has occurred, the lobby (red parts) is considered in-bounds. So for the defensive team to successfully push the retreating raider out of bounds, they would have to get him outside the court including the lobby, or beyond the red, before he crossed the mid-line.
And the final totally bizarre rule — as a raider, you are not allowed take a breath once you cross the mid-line. You have to chant “kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi” constantly while you’re on the opposite half so that the referee can validate that you haven’t inhaled. And if you find yourself running out of breath before your 30 seconds are up — you better sprint back to your side, because if you inhale while raiding, you’re automatically considered tackled.
All in all, this is actually a dope sport to watch. It’s very action-packed and the baseline athleticism is pretty cool. It has also become a highly televised sport — the Pro Kabaddi League in India got 68 million viewers for its championship last year, which is about 30 million more than the average World Series game. Whoa. Given it was invented there, it’s no surprise that India is the reigning world champ. They’ve actually never lost a Kabaddi World Cup or not won gold in it at the Asia Games.
Check out these videos — I think y’all will really enjoy watching:
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