Strangely enough, a lot of my friends are sporty active types. Most of them aren’t crazy inhuman types that train all the time (ok, so maybe a few at the running club are), but really just guys and gals that like to have a bit of fun.  So it’s easy enough to pick up the phone and find someone to go for a run, climb, bike ride or just something.  Anyway, I was in Hong Kong visiting family recently and while catching up over dinner with two friends learned of the sport that was gripping them.  Dodgeball.

Ok, so I was thinking, isn’t that the game I played when I was 10?  Anyway, it transpired that several of my friends are now playing dodgeball – and they are pretty serious about it.  To be fair, they’re not training like Ben Stiller did with an old guy throwing wrenches at them, but they play every week and it’s uber competitive.  Hong Kong’s a pretty small place and there are around 23 teams playing in their league (say 10 people a team, that’s 230 people actively and regularly playing competitive dodgeball).  So we went along to the Women’s League Final and I have to say it looked great fun.

What could be more stress busting than throwing (soft) balls at people as hard and fast as you can? I’m guessing company dodgeball would go down quite well…Well on returning to London, I was slightly disappointed not to be able to find an active dodgeball league. I figure it could be a fun game to try out (and guys could revel in quoting movie lines through their games).  There is a UK Association (http://www.ukdba.org), but there doesn’t seem to be much going on in London.  I guess I’ll stick to the track this summer instead.