As its disability pride month, I’d like to teach you all about a sport that’s close to my heart - boccia. Boccia is a sport specifically designed for disabled people, it’s even part of the paralympics. It’s a sitting-down sport, out of respect for wheelchair users as well as those who cannot stand for other reasons, and it just makes us all equal. Any disabled person can play it, whether you’re physically disabled, have a cognitive disability or, for example, if you’re visually impaired, and it’s in different categories so that nobody is unfairly made to play against somebody who is a great deal stronger than them, both a doctor and a physical therapist classify each player to make sure that they are playing in a set that’s right for them. I’ve talked a lot about the inclusivity, but not about what the sport actually is. Essentially, it’s an indoor version of bowls, and there’s three ways to play it - singles, partners, and teams. When you play single, you have six balls that are either blue or red, and in four ‘ends’ you take it in turns with your opponent to try and hit a white ball and knock the other player’s balls away from the white ball, which is called a jack, and the way that turns are decided is that the player whose ball is the furthest away from the jack must keep throwing until either they run out of balls or their ball is closer. In teams, you play with two other players on your own team and have two balls each, and it essentially works the same except you have a team leader who decides which player is in the best position to throw their ball at the jack, and there are six ends (I forgot to mention that each player takes turns to start an end by throwing the jack and the first ball). Partners works similarly to singles except you have four balls each, play with just one other person on your own team and alternate which player from your own team will throw instead of delegating. The balls look like this:
Additionally, some players do not throw the balls, but instead use a ramp, but this isn’t easier because their assistant is not allowed to look at the court and the player must direct them on how to position the ramp to achieve the optimal shot. I’ve watched a few ramp games myself and I think they’re really impressive. There’s boccia tournaments, both local and national, and the players in each category are ranked. The number one champion in my category frequently plays in other countries, and there are many opportunities for boccia players including one player who was in a Pepsi advert once. I’m talking about this because I am proud to be disabled, as well as to be a boccia player, I’ve only been playing for less than a year but it is a joy to find a sport I am actually good at. Also, not many people know what boccia is unless they have first-hand experience, I’ve had to explain the sport to lots of people (not that I mind at all) and out of curiosity, I searched the sport here on Tumblr and found almost nothing, which I think isn’t right for such a wonderful and inclusive sport. I hope that if you’re disabled like me, I’ve encouraged you to look more into the sport and possibly give it a try, and if you’re non-disabled, I hope you’ve learnt some interesting facts about such a relatively little-known yet infinitely worth discussing sport :).
