length of a competitor’s finger shall not be longer than 15cm.
Illegal fingernail length is an automatic disqualification unless an approved glove is worn or the fingernail is trimmed immediately.
American-Indian Leg Wrestling
American-Indian Wrestling is based on pitting different parts of the body against your opponent’s, one part at a time. There are many different forms, such as Back Wrestling: standing back to back and trying to push each other a set distance; One-legged Wrestling: standing on one leg and trying to push your opponent over; Thumb Wrestling, and, of course, Leg Wrestling.
In Leg Wrestling two players lie flat on their backs, side by side. They should be next to each other and touching, but pointing in different directions so that the feet of one player are next to the head of the other and the players’ hips are touching. They then simultaneously raise their adjacent legs straight up three times. On the third raise players should hook ankles and try to pull their opponent over. No other part of the body is used, and the non-playing leg should remain flat on the floor and not be used for leverage. Games usually last a much shorter time than in Arm Wrestling, and successful play depends not just on muscular strength but also on stealth and speed.
Mora
Mora is an ancient guessing game that involves using your hands.
If there are two players, each faces the other and on a count of three must show a number of fingers on one hand. The number chosen can be anything from zero (keep your fist closed) to five (extend your thumb and all of your fingers). At the same time as both players show their hand they also shout out what they think the total number of fingers will be. If a player guesses correctly they gain two points; whoever is nearest to the correct answer gets one point.
A successful strategy involves noticing whether your opponent has a tendency to favour small or large numbers, then using this information appropriately.
Peanuts
A silly playground game, the finger-wrestling game of Peanuts at least has the advantage of developing your finger and wrist muscles.
Two players face each other, raise both their hands and interlink their fingers. With their hands clasped in this fashion, battle now commences as each attempts to bend back the other’s hands and, obviously, avoid having their own bent. To make the game fair, hands need to be kept at shoulder height throughout. The game finishes when one player’s hands are successfully bent back or one gives up with an anguished shout of ‘peanuts’.
Pen Spinning
If you ever sit in your office or schoolroom bored out of your mind and twirling your pen around your fingers, perhaps now is the time to take this practice more seriously. Learn a new trick or two, because the serious finger-bending sport of Pen Spinning is a growing one.
Having originated in Japan, competitive pen spinning then spread to Korea and the US, and has now developed set moves such as rapid end to end passes, twirls, the thumbaround (the pen travels 360 degrees around the thumb), and nail spins (the pen spins on a fingernail), and even jumps. Keen pen spinners use specially modified and weighted pens, and to see a quality spinner in action is to see the hand working at the upper limits of its capabilities—fingers and pen both blur. The US-based Universal Pen Spinning Board (see Internet Resources) hold regular, videoed competitions where spinners are judged by their peers on style, tricks and overall routine.
Unfortunately, there is yet to be a serious take up of table-top finger drumming.
Shin Kicking
The Japanese have Judo; the Chinese have Kung Fu; in Gloucestershire they kick shins.
The British Shin Kicking Championships take place annually in Chipping Campden on the first Friday after the second May Bank Holiday as part of the Cotswold Olimpick Games. Dress rules are very simple and elegant: competitors wear long trousers with straw protective padding attached to their shins underneath (otherwise it would be plain crazy). White shepherds’ smocks complete the fighting costume. Each player then holds onto his opponent’s shoulders and the kicking begins.
Rules dictate that no kicks are allowed above knee level, and, whilst kicking, each player must try to wrestle his opponent to the ground. This has to be achieved during the process of kicking, otherwise it is not a valid wrestle down.
The long-since forgotten, but analogous, sport of Clog Shin Kicking was popular in the mining towns around Manchester in the mid-nineteenth century. Then, men were men and kicked shins whilst they were totally naked except for the heavy wooden clogs on their feet. Contests were hard fought and bloody. Some competitors bent the rules by soaping themselves up first, thus making themselves more difficult to grab hold of.
If Shin Kicking appeals but is a little too violent for your liking, you could always try the gentler, modern-day equivalent of Toe Fencing. In this sport players, once again, clasp each other by the shoulders but attempt to stamp on the other’s toes before their own are squashed.
Slapsies
If Rock, Paper, Scissors is the king of playground hand games, Slapsies, or Slaps, is its boorish, dysfunctional half-brother who’s heading for Borstal. There are records of it being played in the 1940s, but its popularity fluctuates and presently it is making something of a comeback.
For two people playing, both hold their hands as if praying but with arms stretched out in front of them and fingertips touching. Each then takes it in turn to try to slap the back of one of their opponent’s hands before they can be with-drawn. If they succeed, they get another go. If they miss, their opponent has their turn, and so on.
If a player withdraws their hands three times when a slap has not been attempted, their opponent has a free slap (usually it is delivered with the utmost venom and is therefore very painful).
The term ‘tipsies’ is shouted if the striking player catches the fingertips of the slappee. This still counts as a hit and he gets another go.
Play continues until a player’s will to go on disappears as his hands glow an ever deeper red.
Slapsies is in the unusual position of being a hand game with no official governing body and no organised championships as yet.
An interesting Slapsies variation is My Mother Says.
For two players: each places their hands alternately on top of one another’s on a firm surface, such as a table, as if they were playing My Mother Says That You Are This High (where players all place their hands together in a pile then pull them out and on top whilst chanting the phrase, until the moment when one player’s hand movement corresponds with ‘High’ and so becomes ‘It’). Now, with their hands in position, the player whose hand is at the bottom must withdraw it as swiftly as possible and attempt a hard slap on the topmost hand. Obviously the player whose hand is exposed must try to withdraw it, avoiding the slap and hopefully causing the player in motion to slap his own hand with force. Play now alternates with the hand at the bottom of the pile having the next go. The faster the game is played, the more confusing, and often painful, it becomes.
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