Week 4 - Handball

An intense, fast paced, good fun sport that is much more physical than I realised, but a really nice bunch of guys introduced us to it gently.

This week started with yet another early start (why always early mornings?!) as I headed out for a beginners Handball session with Olympia Handball Club London. This week I dragged my friend Simon along, who was feeling more than a little sorry for himself having hit a few (gay) bars the night before (sorry Simon, couldn't resist).

My first impression of handball came whilst I was travelling around Eastern Europe where it is clearly a big deal and without knowing the rules it looked like a good fun, fast paced game similar to a cross between Football and Basketball.
Having actually played now I think it's much closer to Ice Hockey crossed with Basketball and a hint of American Football. Essentially you have the physical aspect of Hockey, the defensive play of American Football (arms length pushing off the ball and open season on the guy who has the ball - but only from the front), and the end to end playing style of Basketball. The strategy of the game is fairly similar too, the idea is to break down the opponents defensive line using a combination of speed, strength and skill.

Our Handball session began with what I can only assume is a strange Eastern European children's game similar to Tag (Tig?), which the coach seemed incredulous that none of us had heard of before, let alone never played. This was followed by pretty intense interval 'pyramid' warm up.
The main session was primarily made up of passing and shooting drills, since the club teams were playing matches and had taken most of the balls, but that was fine since we were as new to passing as the rest of the game. 
The main problem we and the other first timers found was that we didn't really have a complete picture of how the game is played in practice including what all the rules are, so a lot of what we were being taught had little context in terms of the actual sport. So I think less drills more games would have been a bit better for an introductory session.

After the training we headed out to a local pub and had a few beers with our fellow Handballers.

Sadly because of the nature of the session I didn't get any chance to take any pictures again so to help you imagine what it was like I've photo-shopped some together below.

Overall, it is something I definitely want to go back and try again especially to play a proper game and put some of the drills into practice (and get some photos!). Also the guys we met there who play regularly were a nice welcoming bunch.

We both decided to change our shoes halfway through the session.
Simon also thought it prudent to take his glasses off