This Week In Violence! Presents Shin-Kicking

I’ll never forget the chemistry prof I had for the one science class I was required to take in my freshman year of college.

“Yes, I’m from Wales. Where men are men, and sheep are nervous.”

I never did particularly well in that class, but I did enjoy coming to lectures. That man was living proof that there’s something up with the Welsh, and almost certainly the Brits too, as a whole. Who else would find kicking each other as hard as you can in the shins to be a fun and entertaining pastime?

Shin-kicking, which is also known as hacking or purring, has been around as an actual organized sport for hundreds of years. It runs as an annual event as part of the Cotswold Olimpick Games, a festival that has long-running roots dating back to the 17th century. The Games are held each year on Dover’s Hill, outside the village of Chipping Campden, a small hamlet in the Cotswolds district of Gloucestershire, which borders onto Wales. Gloucestershire, as you may recall from a few weeks ago, is the same region that brings us competitive cheese-rolling, so clearly I’m starting to wonder just what exactly the hell is going on in the southwest UK.

Anyways, the Cotswold Olimpick Games were believed to be first held around 1622, under the royal assent of King James I, by lawyer Robert Dover – apparently events including horse-racing, swordfighting, sledgehammer-throwing, quarterstaff, and wrestling. It was typically held around Whitsun (the 7th Sunday after Easter, typically May or June), until Puritan presence, who disapproved strongly of what they perceived its roots in heathen traditions, quashed a lot of celebrations around about 1640-1660. After the Restoration, it continued to exist in similar forms, but was eventually cancelled in 1852 because it had apparently simply become too much of a drunken, violent debauchery, though no legal records actually exist backing up any of these claims. This seems a shame, truly.

Fortunately, the Games were revived in the 1950s by a historical society, and the modern form features such events as motorcycle-scrambling, tug-of-war, judo, piano-smashing, dwile flonking, and, of course, shin-kicking.

Legend has it that shin-kicking in its earliest forms had competitors wearing pointy nail-covered boots, or sometimes steel toes, and that they increased their pain tolerance by regularly whacking their own shins with hammers. However, as badass and insane as that is, the modern game is more tame, and probably more sensible as well. Current sport rules follow as such:

  • All competitors must wear soft-toed shoes only.
  • All competitors must stuff their pant legs with straw before competing. This deadens the blows. Allegedly.
  • Competitors will wear white coats (akin to like a doctor’s coat), provided by the Games. These represent shepherd smocks of old.
  • Competitors must stand facing each other with hands on their opponent’s shoulders and/or jacket collars.
  • Competitors may kick their opponent with either the inside of the foot or the toes, and only to the front or close side of the shin.
  • Absolutely no sweep-kicking, slewfooting, etc. of any kind.
  • A round is over when one competitor is either on the ground, or cries out “sufficient”, which gives his opponent the point.
  • All matches are officiated by a referee or “stickler” who keeps score and makes sure competitors fight cleanly. They get a big stick to separate competitors, if need be.
  • In the modern version of the sport, matches are played best 2 out of 3.

Just look at these guys go. I can only imagine how many pints are consumed post-competition as a means of dulling the throbbing pain.

This other video is from the 2014 Cotswold Olimpick Games, which features a nice little rundown of the history of shin-kicking, plus a quick glance around into some of the other events common at Dover’s Hill. The funny-looking wooden castle is a mandatory part of the decor for the Games, and it even existed all the way back in the 17th century.

All in all, shin-kicking is just more proof that human beings will invent some incredibly crazy shit just to entertain a crowd. Somewhere, Troy Vincent is passing out $50K fines for flagrant personal fouls like they’re candy. Good thing they have no jurisdiction here.

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The Maestro
The Maestro is a mystical Canadian internet user and New England Patriots fan; when the weather is cooperative and the TV signal at his igloo is strong enough, he enjoys watching the NFL, the Ottawa Senators & REDBLACKS, and yelling into the abyss on Twitter. He is somehow allowed to teach music to high school students when he isn't in a blind rage about sports, and is also a known connoisseur of cheap beers across the Great White North.
https://www.doorfliesopen.com/index.php/author/the-maestro/
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Wakezilla

comment image?w=300

Unsurprised

Later world. Smell my ass.

comment image

Unsurprised

More Ariel. Now that she’s 18 and after having gotten breast reduction surgery six months ago, she went on vacation and it turns out she also has a GREAT ASS

http://115.imagebam.com/download/_7Z9B1yEqTu7cGP54Pgryg/47741/477405985/Ariel01.gif

http://116.imagebam.com/download/FBwhSFPx08kYcLLQTV02Wg/47741/477406060/Ariel02.gif

WCS

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…and you got your head ALL THE UP IT.

Wakezilla
ALXMAC
WCS

Larry David as Bernie Sanders is going to be a great President.

WCS

Yeah, I posted this in the Live Request! thread. Eat me.

ALXMAC

You can never have too much Tool; no homo.

Beastmode Ate My Baby
ALXMAC

I regert that I did’t post this on the math/numbers thread:

https://youtu.be/gFawb5RCbGE

Unsurprised

The amount of estrogen in the water to give so many English woman such big boobs must be staggering.

ALXMAC

I just figured that they were mom boobs; yer saying that there is a trend?

Unsurprised

Yeah. Page 3 girls basically start at D/DD and go up from there. The English have a long tradition of busy glamour models and actresses, e.g. Hayley Atwell above and Kelly Brook, who has gone from DD to F or G as she gained weight. Point being that the English/British love big tits and don’t lack for them.

ALXMAC

Well I’ve always been a fan of Page 3 gals; didn’t know that it still exsisted. I should have realized that they were featuring big naturals as opposed to most UK gals being fat bottom girls.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh
ALXMAC
Unsurprised

Speaking of England, Emrata was born in England, which explains why she was a D cup at age 12.

WCS

Wifey and I have an agreement that if I ever get the chance to bang Kate, she gets to bang Patrick Dempsey (???), or vice-versa.

Unsurprised

Shit. I was getting to that.

That gif below is pretty nipply, too, but that … That’s beauty.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Sweaty too.

Unsurprised

You have the advantage. We’ve seen her naked. McDreamy could be hung like a flea.

makeitsnowondem

Have the two of you consulted Kate and Patrick about this?

WCS

Giving “birth” to a chestburster really sucks.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

I would like them yo have a boob-off; I can seed the players.

http://41.media.tumblr.com/88cb307c69814e1b6a0c83ee2c0cc665/tumblr_o3z21qsfNo1szvlx8o5_1280.jpg

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

You completely misinterpreted what I meant.

Unsurprised

Oh goddamn it. I’m slow.

I am still eager to assist, though.

Wakezilla

Keep the change

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theeWeeBabySeamus

Overpaid for DiGiorno?
Honeybadger don’t give a fuck.

ALXMAC

I’d rather pay for Dominos or Pizza Hut than overpay those hosers that sell me a pizza that I still have to make myself.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

You are NO BADGER.

WCS

She’ll Britta those noodles.

Wakezilla

Anyone watch Friday Night Tykes? Good lord, what a trainwreck. Also, if I ever have a boy, I’m never allowing him to play football. Some of these kids are going through CTE at freaking 9!

WCS

The only sport I’m allowing my soon-to-be-kid is volleyball and golf. Maybe tennis.