Tug of War

Tug of War is a simple display of strength, but is there more to it than that? Listen in to find out. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and Jerry's even here.
Believe it or not, We're thrilled for that. And uh,

(00:21):
this is stuff you should know. Okay, stop asking, that's right. Uh.
I want to say this is part two of the
rudimentary games that there is seemingly more too than you
would think. Hm, starting with rochambo or almost a tick
tech toe again, what's my deal with that? I don't

(00:43):
know rock paper scissors, but I must admit there is
more to Rock paper Scissors than Tug of War. I
am very glad that I didn't have to get that
out of you. Yeah, I thought there would. I thought
there was more to it than this strategy wise, and
I think I was suckered at by Squid Game, which
we'll talk about a little bit later, uh, into thinking

(01:06):
that there could be some more depths to this. There's
not a whole lot. No. Apparently Squid Games like really
took something and and made something huge out of it,
because I mean it was even an Olympic support for
a little while in the Olympics were like, let's not
do that anymore. Yeah, although I have to say growing
up in this eighties and uh, there was it was

(01:29):
a lot more in the forefront because like Battle of
the Network Stars did it on TV. H do you
remember the Superstars? No, it was a sports competition show
on Sunday afternoons and it took, you know, prominent athletes
from all sports and pitted them against one another all

(01:51):
season long to to determine a champion. And there was
this great obstacle course it was. It was one of
the most sort of eighties you know, aside from uh
American American Gladiators kind of things that you could watch
and uh there was a tug of war, usually between
two teams comprised of like prominent football players versus prominent

(02:13):
baseball players, and that was always a big deal. In fact,
I just watched a a recap of the one hour
in fifteen minute epic battle from between members of the
Kansas City Royals and uh, I don't know who the
other side was. I think it was a football team.
Was George Brett on that team? Yet? You bet your

(02:33):
buddy was Was that his rookie year? No? Huh, But
it was right, no, no no, no Prebo Jackson yet, but
that was pretty epic. And on that one they were
I mean they were laying down in the sand and resting,
some guys taking their hands off at times. It was
you know, all the rules, you know. They tied the

(02:55):
rope around their waist, as did Louferrigno in Battle of
the Network Stars was the anchor all kinds of things
that you don't do, which we'll talk about in true
competition Tug of War, but it was just sort of
I feel like we saw Tug of War a lot
more in the eighties than we do now. Yeah. That
and running under a giant parachute that your classmates were

(03:15):
billowing up for you. It's a second reference. I've heard
of that in a week. Oh really, yeah, I never
did that, but oh chuck, we're going to we're gonna
get some stuff. You should know. Listeners together and do
that because you have to experience it at least once.
You're like, it is thrilling, I need to. It was
on the Threedom podcast, So Paula Tompkins and Ackerman and
Lauren Lapkins we're talking about that. It's a lot of fun.

(03:37):
We're gonna I'm gonna like that is going to happen
before you die, all right, and I gets run under
you run under before it catches you. That's the key.
So there's like a certain amount of tention to it.
What if he catches you, like touches you, Yes, that
silky goodness. Don't you want that touch on you know?
Or else you you dissolve? Okay? Uh But anyway, I

(03:58):
just you know, in the field day in the eighties,
like there was tug of war all over the place,
but you don't see it much anymore until squid Game
came around, and I think that did sort of reignite
some interest, including myself totally. And it's from what from
this research that we've done on this um your experience
and my experience too at that age where you know,
tug of war is like a big part of your life.

(04:21):
That's the most you can possibly experience or get out
of it. You got everything there was to get out
of it pretty much except for knowing that it was
an Olympic sport for twenty years, that's right. And squid
Games the TV show, by the way, and then we
often just talk about things, is that people know what
they are well. I mean, who hasn't heard of Squid Games?
Did you watch it? Yeah? Of course yes, me and

(04:43):
everybody else on the planet. That's why you just mistitled it.
I just was curious what I call it squid Games?
Is it suid squid Game? Yeah? Okay, yeah, I really,
I really fumble down. Well, it's better than Squid's game
because that's all the pressure that sounds like how Hodgeman
would pronounce it. So yeah, if you haven't seen Squid Game, um, like,

(05:06):
go check it out. It's amazing and it's on Netflix
and actually it alone is worth getting a month's subscription
to Netflix if you don't have it. Yeah, but we'll
talk about the strategy they use, which made for great television,
but apparently it's not a thing, disappointingly. Yeah, but if
you haven't seen some good games, don't listen to that part.
Just put your fingers in your ears and shout Mimi
Me at the top of your lungs and very high

(05:28):
pitched voice until we're done. So we're talking about Tug
of War, believe it or not, and um, I think
chuck just in the spirit of people who say stop
saying if you if unless you've been living under a rock.
You haven't heard of something we should explain with Tug
of war is okay, Yeah, let's do it. Okay. So,
in the modern sense of the word, tug of war

(05:50):
is a game that's played between It can be as
as few as two people. It can be as many
as your imagination can fit onto a rope. And um,
the people are on two sides. Uh, they're opposing sides,
and they're pulling in opposite directions on that rope. And

(06:12):
the point of the game is to pull your opponent
pass some line to where you've just won, or pull them,
knock them down, pull it until they let go of
the rope, or There's a few different ways to win,
but generally you're pulling your opponent past some line and
then you've won and you can run around shouting yes

(06:33):
and thrusting your fist in the air. That's right. I
think the most fun versions, especially on television, are when
there's a mud pit in the middle. Sure. Uh. In
the case of squid game, it is a battle to
the death, that's all we'll say. Uh. In elementary school,
it's usually on the gymnasium floor with some tape or

(06:54):
like a ribbon hanging down from the rope, or maybe
if um the phizz ed teacher hadn't pre planned, it's
just their whistle and their lanyard forming a line on
the floor. Uh. In the case of Revenge of the Nerds,
the nerds have no chance. I guess I should say
spoiler alert. Oh, I remember what happens there. They let go.

(07:17):
They did. They won by losing, that's right, They let
go and the jocks fell into the dusty dirt, and
the nerds just said, congratulations, you won, and boy Ogre
was so mad. Ogre was so mad. So. Um, that's it.
That's tug of war. And you've probably played it before,

(07:38):
and it is true, like I'm just giving you some
grief that like there's nothing more to it, there is
a surprising amount more to it, because it is a
ridiculously simple game. Um, but it's so simple. Chuck that
Ed who helped us out with this, makes a really
good point that basically, if you threw a dart at
any part of the globe, you would probably find some

(07:59):
his Doric tradition of some form of tug of war.
It's been it spans millennia, it um, it crosses geographic
and cultural boundaries. It's just been invented multiple times in
multiple places because it's just such a simple concept, and
yet at the same time it still gives you that
thrill that any game or struggle should give you when

(08:23):
you win. Do you want to hit some history? Do
you want to save that? I think we should hit
some history. It just makes sense to put it at
the beginning if you ask me, Yeah, so, yeah, you're right.
I mean we're talking, Uh, Vikings did it, the Nordic
sports did it across streams. Uh. There have been various
versions of like man versus beast at times, or a

(08:45):
machine versus machine. The British Navy INTI they used a
tug of war to settle a debate on whether a
propeller driven ship was better than the old paddle wheel.
Of course, the propeller one. Yeah, so it's it's been
a way to settle disputes at times. Yeah, and I
think it's still is. It's not quite as good at

(09:07):
settling a spew to say, rock paper scissors. It takes longer,
and there's there's you know, potential injuries we'll see, but yes,
you can settle this potential amputation which scissors. Will never
do in rock paper scissors. Now, try as hard as
you can, you just can't do it. Uh, what about
this the rasa Kashi? Yeah, so apparently India has a

(09:27):
long tradition of um tug of war like games, and
I guess their their version of tug of war is
called rassakashi. And you can still tune into game shows
today where like that's part of the game show is
like a tug of war and there's not you know,
normally when you watch a game show, there's like a
there's just a certain amount of peppiness and like lightness

(09:50):
to the whole thing. Now, the one I saw this
rasakashi um competition, it looks it looked like a game
show was indoors in a stage and like the whole
was wearing a suit or whatever. But they were dead
serious about this, like they took it really seriously. UM.
And that's apparently out of the Punjab region of of India.

(10:11):
There's UH in an entirely different part of India called
Konark there's a Sun temple there that was built in
the century and there's a depiction of tug of war
on the wall there. So it's been around in India
for quite some time, hundreds and hundreds of years at least. Yeah,
And of course when Europeans came to the America's and

(10:33):
this is sort of unclear whether or not they brought
it with them or whether or not it uh existed
previously to indigenous people of the America's, which is very
possible because they had all kinds of kind of folky
sports that they played in tug of war. You know,
I think what piqued my interest from the beginning was
the rudimentary nature of it, which is, like you said,

(10:53):
sometimes just one person on one side and one person
another and can you pull them? Can you out either
maybe out with them or usually just out muscle them
to do so. So perhaps Native American tribes did this
to begin with, but at any rate, they uh, you know,
the colonizers would would play these games sometimes including tug

(11:16):
of war, and Ed points out sometimes it was a
friendlier way to say I can dominate you rather than
just killing someone, right right, yes, um, And and and again
that's a way to settle disputes or tension as well.
It can be if we'll take these five thousand acres
because we want a tug of war as we pulled

(11:37):
you over the arbitrary line. Right. Um, there's there's tug
of war in China. Um, there's tug of war. There's
a long standing tug of war from that started in
the fourteenth century in Korea called the Jewel Darigi Festival.
I think he nailed it. They they have it uh

(11:59):
every year, and it's substantially different from most other tug
of war that you've ever seen, sorry tugs of war
that you've seen, and that the rope is enormous. Um.
Typically it's about two hundred meters long, the six hundred
feet for you American school kids a meter thick, weighing

(12:19):
forty tons, And you're like, well, how do you even
get your arms around a three ft circumference rope? Well
you don't. It has actual ropes, smaller ropes that you
can handle coming off of it, and hundreds of people
will participate in this and the whole town turns out
for it, and it's amazing to see UH. And I
was like, that certainly rings a bell because Humi has

(12:41):
told me many, many times that one of her fondest
childhood memories is the tug of war festival in Naha
and Okinawa, where she was born and raised. UM, and
they've been doing that since the seventeenth century, and it's
it bears such a striking resemblance to the one from
Korea that obviously the Koreans influenced them. But it's the
east of the town in the west of the town,

(13:03):
and they've their rope is even bigger and even more
people come. Apparently they set the world record. There were
two hundred and seventy thousand people in attendance and fifteen
thousand people participating on the east and the west side. Uh.
And I can't remember which one that year. It was
quite a party to see that video. And I imagine

(13:24):
the Japanese festival is much like the one in Korea,
where the tug of war itself is really not the fun.
The fun is getting together building this rope together. I
imagine there's a little bit of drinking that goes on. Yeah,
it had and uh, everyone just has a good time.
It's sort of been the spirit of uh, of friendship
rather than let me try and dominate you, right exactly,

(13:47):
because I mean they're all from the same time. It's
just the east side of the town. On the west
side of the town, but the so I asked you
me about that because I hadn't heard about the rope
being constructed. Apparently at the Korean festival they make the
rope every year, and I was like, did did they
construct the rope every year? And she's like, well, I
don't think so. And I said, well, where did they
store this forty three ton si ft long rope? And

(14:09):
she's like a hanger, know, So I need to get
to the bottom of that of whether they made the
rope themselves. But she was a kid. They would go
every year and she just it was like the biggest
deal every year in in Okinawa. So she was the anchor,
she was, she was cheering them on. I think she
did participate at least one year. Yeah, that's cute. You

(14:31):
just grab a rope, you know, and pull. Yeah, exactly.
I think it's Some people say that it was one
of the original ancient Olympic sports, but there's not a
ton to back this up is being true. It may
have been, um but as Ed points out, it you know,
it didn't. It didn't get a lot of press even
if it was, so it was never that highly regarded.

(14:52):
Uh and when it was an official Olympic sport in
the modern Olympics, it was still in the early nineteen hundreds,
was still not super highly regarded in that you didn't field,
um like an American, an official American team. There were clubs,
teamed club teams that would show up and could uh
participate like multiple from one country, and then sometimes they

(15:14):
would just feel the team from people in other sports.
But if you were like a shot putter, I would say,
now go do the shot put Like, I know, you're
on the anchor for the team, but the schedules conflict
and you should do the shot. But because that's a
real event, yeah, for sure, which is sad. It is
sort of sad, especially if you were like the one
guy on the tug aboard team who like really took

(15:35):
it seriously and all of a sudden your team dissolved
because the shot put her to go shot putt and
so on. That's right. Um, you want to take a
break and then come back and talk a little more
about the Olympic history of it. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, okay, Chuck,

(16:13):
so um, there's a lot of legend and laura around
this very short um period of Olympic history. Um, that
tug of war appeared in and a lot of it's wrong,
Like you were saying that it was an original, ancient
Games event and there's no real evidence of that. There's
also um a widely held fact that a guy named

(16:35):
Constantine Enriquez de Zubi Eira was the first black Olympic
athlete and that he won a silver and Tug of
War and gold and rugby in the nineteen Olympics. And
apparently that's partly true but not right. I think it
was a case of mistaken identity usually, which just one

(16:56):
of those Internet things where it keeps getting repeated anyway,
But there was a Lumbian name Francisco Enriquez the Siberia
that did win a silver medal for Tug of War,
but a Haitian Constantine Enriquez one rugby. Okay, So, so
Constantine Enriquez was the first black Olympic athlete. He just

(17:17):
had nothing to do with Tug of War. I think
that's the case. But I mean that's the kind of
depth that we have to get to to make Tug
of War interesting. Cases of mistaken identity. I wasn't even
going to mention it actually, but sure, okay, um so okay,
So there was a twenty year period from nine ninety

(17:38):
Olympics you could find tug of war unless your team
had gotten dissolved, and apparently that happened frequently enough that
I believe in the nineteen oh what Olympics was it
to where so many teams got dissolved that they only
gave out a golden a sil silver medal that year,
which means how many teams were there too. All the

(18:03):
other teams got dissolved and there were two teams left,
so you had a chance, I guess, of either coming
in silver or gold and a hundred percent chance of
medaling that year. Yeah, that's not bad at all. Uh.
In nine eight the there was a police team, the
Liverpool Police at the Olympics. Again you could field club
teams and that's what they did in England. They had

(18:24):
these big boots because, as we'll see later, one of
the biggest keys is the physics of feet on the
floor and having big heavy shoes. If you're uh, if
you're doing this on an outdoor like on the grass,
you can dig in with some big heavy boots. And
apparently the US team filed the protest because they wore
these big, giant doc Martins or something like that. I

(18:46):
guess right. So um that year actually the Liverpool Police
team medal, got a silver medal, and the the Brits
actually swept the podium. The City of London Police got gold,
Liverpool Police got silver and the Metropolitan Police K Division
got bronze. Here just like all these cops battling, all

(19:08):
these bobbies battling it out. It is and but the
reason why is apparently it was a big deal in Britain.
It was a big deal in um Ireland as well.
UM and your local police force probably had a tug
of war team because tug of war was part of
their training. And from what I saw, that actually originated
from the British Navy UM using Tug of Wars training
to kind of you know, hoist sales and all that stuff.

(19:30):
You've got to basically do that in real life, so
they would use tug of war and then the cops
kind of picked it up as police forces came into
existence in the UK. And then because with the Olympics
there weren't national teams, you could have club teams. That's
how you could have three different police force tug of
war teams sweeping the podium for Great Britain in in

(19:51):
the nineteen o eight Olympics and it it uh, I
mean they still, I think still use it in the
American military because not only is it a good workout,
but it's a morale builder. You get these divisions or
platoons against one another, and uh, you know, it's a
good it's a good group sport, especially in the military,

(20:11):
like sort of just a brute strength thing to try
and rally your battalion. And keeps saying all these different
words because I don't know what they call each other, platoons, battalions, groups, uh, teams, um,
book clubs, book clubs against one another. Uh. Nineteen twenty
was the last time it was at the Olympics because

(20:32):
they looked around in nineteen twenty and said, we have
way too many events and what gets cut. Of course,
Tug of War was one of those. And you know
there is I don't know about a ground swell, but uh,
certainly after Squid Game there were a few people wondering
if it should come back in the Olympics, and I
doubt it ever will, but you never know. There were
some things that happened though. Apparently back in the Tug

(20:56):
of War International Federation who we'll talk a little bit
more about later. Um, it was recognized by the International
Olympic Committee. Um that's something. Yeah, which that's a huge
first step to ending up with your sport in the Olympics.
But then just two years later or three years later, Um,
the IOC told the media, like, you know, the t

(21:19):
w i F is going to really have to get
a lot better funding and a lot more international participation
before it's going to end up in the Olympics. Has
a long way to go, if ever, it will show
up again. Yeah, And you know, I hate to say it.
Ed points it out. It's kind of true though it's
not the most exciting thing to watch when you watch
competition tug of war. Even watching that Superstars clip from

(21:42):
earlier in my childhood, it was an hour and fifteen
minutes long of these guys basically lying there in the sand, uh,
with an equal tautness on both sides of the rope,
like nothing was happening. They're exhausted that like I said,
they're taking their hands off to like massad their hands
and and try and regain some bit of a grip.

(22:03):
But it ended in a draw. No one even one.
It was really I know it's there's not even a
great ending to the story, like with Luferrigno and he
beat Billy Crystal. Um Billy Crystal, well they were on teams,
but Billy Crystal was on one side. Lufrigno was on
the other. Battle the Network Stars, I guess it was
soap okay at the time, was most of the show

(22:24):
Billy Crystal represented. But um, at least you know, Luferrigno
and and Daisy Duke and his team one but no
one even one in the in the sand that day,
they just dig in lay there and eventually they said,
we got to stop this madness, so let's set a
time limit, like as they were going, they set the
time limit when it was clear nothing was going on.

(22:45):
It was terrible television. And so they said it in
an hour and fifteen and it stopped and nobody won.
And that was kind of it. And sometimes that's how
it goes. Howard Coastell just comes on and goes, I'm sorry,
folks on Oh no, it was it Coastel. He did
the Battle of the Battle Network starts. Lufi Now that
was Katherine Hepburn. Now that was so um. We should

(23:13):
probably talk a little bit about the t W I
f we we Um revealed that there is an International
Federation of Tug of War UM. And they actually came
about from what I saw, Chuck Um, because after the Olympics,
people said after the MS I don't know if yeah,
you did say that. They finally said we're cutting these
are their tug of war is not making the cut.

(23:35):
That that didn't diminish interest in tug of war and
a lot of the countries where it was already popular.
So UM they actually started assembling national teams and some
some national teams have been assembled for the Olympics already anyway,
but they had no way to compete against one another.
They can only compete within their countries. And so the
the guy named UM, George Hutton got together with the

(23:58):
Swedes and said, hey, let's form the Tug of War
International Federation back in nineteen sixty and the rest is history.
Known to half a dozen people. George E. F. Hutton.
Maybe I was thinking George Timothy Hutton because when he talks,

(24:21):
people listen, Oh is that who that was? Yeah? I
remember that commercial, sure, I remember, but I could never
remember what brokerage it was. Yeah, I mean this is
the show is just overflying with eighties references now all
of a sudden, Yeah, do you remember the Saturna Night
Live spoof of that? No? Oh? I think it was
Robert Smigel and they did. They just nailed the commercial.

(24:42):
It looked exactly like it. But he would just start
saying all these like bizarre things with like the the
the full attention of the rooms of these people just enwrapped.
I can't remember what he would say, but it's definitely
worth looking up. I'm sure did a documentary on Smigel.
They did one on The Dana Carvey Show. Have you

(25:03):
seen that? No? Oh? It was on Hulu and they
said like too Funny to Live is the name of
it or something like that, and it was about this
this show like Dana Carvey just basically gave Robert Smigel
like carte Blanc to make You're just the funniest show
of all time. No, I know what you're talking about.
I actually saw that you saw the show. No. I
saw the documentary about the Kana Carvey Show, and I

(25:25):
thought you met on the Dana Carvey Show. They did
a segment or something. I got. Oh. No, but I'm saying,
like that's probably the closest you can come to a
Smigle documentary right now. Unfortunately, you're right, and that's a
good doctor think it was. It was, but if you're
talking international tug of war competition, um, it is not
just uh you know, on on I hate to bring

(25:46):
it up again, but on on the Superstars, uh as
we'll see. Wait is a really obviously huge key factor
and whether or not you went a tug of war. So,
like boxing and like wrastling, you have to match weights.
So they actually had I think the baseball team had
one extra dude, even than the football side. This was

(26:08):
not official in any capacity from what you're just going. Well,
they had to match weight, you know, that was what
it was all about. Okay, you know what I mean.
So the baseball players were lighter than the football team,
so they had one extra person. But an international competition,
there are eight people on a team. I don't even
know if there's a way in for for these is yes,

(26:30):
most decidedly, it's extremely important. Well then, I mean, what
do they say, like you just have to match weight
with the other team and like playing your team accordingly, Yes,
and I don't think it's down to like the pound
or maybe even the kilogram necessarily, but it's got to
be close enough. There's a class and your team has
to weigh within this weight class. Okay, I got you,

(26:52):
I got you. See what I'm saying. That makes not
pound for pound necessarily, but it has to be an
eight person team and they have to, like the bind
way of the team has to fall within this window
for the class. Okay, that makes sense, just like boxing
and wrestling in fact, right, but divided by eight people. Yeah,
the rope itself is and we should note again, like

(27:13):
I said, you don't tie the rope around the anchor.
There are not knots in the rope like sometimes elementary
school versions you have knots to make it easier for
little kid hands to hold onto and stuff like that.
Not true at all in international competition or any real
you know, like genuine tug of war. You're not gonna
have knots in the rope. No, and supposedly um most

(27:34):
people recommend, although despite his best efforts could not find verification.
I couldn't either that the t W I F. It's
got to be twiff, right, That's what I call it.
That twiff mandates that the rope has to be a
natural fiber. But if you are, if you're doing anything
kind of pro or organized really even any tug of war,

(27:59):
you want to use an natural fiber rope because they're
less prone to snapping. They're also less prone to stretching,
and as we'll see, both of those are really bad
things that can happen, especially if you use a synthetic rope. So, um,
you're not supposed to use most likely a synthetic rope.
You want to use natural fiber, right. Uh. And in

(28:19):
this case, it's thirty three and a half meters long
and between ten and twelve and a half centimeters in circumference,
so it's ten feet long about four to five inches
in circumference. Yeah, and the anchor, like I said, they
don't tie the rope around their waist, but they are
the only people allowed to manipulate the rope in a

(28:39):
way other than just holding it palms up, which is
what everyone else has to do. Like you can't wrap
it around your wrists. That's a bad idea, like as
we'll see later, uh, your coding career, Yeah exactly, but
the anchor will um, they will pass the rope over
their shoulder and then around or back diagonally, then under

(29:01):
the opposite armpit, and then back over the front of
their body and then back under that armpit. So it's
sort of like a little figure eight that they wrap
around their body, but it's never tied right uh, And
from from what I've seen, it looks like it can
be released pretty easily and quickly too. It's not gonna
like tear the person into And also they're the ones

(29:22):
and the that are the furthest back, so they would
be least affected by a catastrophic break of the rope
right or fall into a pit of vipers. One thing
that I didn't notice or realize before that I thought
was pretty interesting, but it makes total sense, is that
if you are a poller, so like you said, the
anchor is the only one who can do anything like

(29:42):
wrapping the rope around even their hand. Um. You you
can grip the rope palms up and that's it. You
can't like move hand over hand to like gain length
on the rope. That's illegal. You can't walk up the
rope right, It's called I think climbing and quote um,
climbing the rope like you have to basically keep your

(30:03):
hands in roughly the same area, which means that all
of the pull on the rope, all the movement on
the rope is created by your leg power. Like you're
holding onto the rope with your with your arms to
keep it from being to keep yourself from being pulled back,
but you're also you're mostly using your leg power. Like
almost all of the strategy in the point of tug

(30:25):
of war is in the legs. Yeah, you're literally walking
the rope backwards. Lou Ferrigno and team they could. It
was It's like the Wild West. They were pulling that
thing hand over hand. You can't do that. Until Billy
Crystal was in that water pool. I didn't know you
can't do that, But now I understand. You can't do that. No,
just for TV. Yeah, you gotta just dig in and

(30:48):
pull pull pull. Uh, you have a coach. Another name
for a coach is a driver. And the driver it's
a big deal. You know, the driver walks up and
down the line and you know there are, like I said,
great periods of rests where you have to just sort
of you aren't allowed to lay down though. Again, Uh,
like on TV, you can't do that. You have to

(31:10):
keep on your feet. But there are still periods of
what you would call rest, and then the driver will
will will mount a challenge, you know, a unison unified
in unison pull pull pull, and you know that's it's
sort of like being the who's the person my mom
does the dragon boat racing the person in the back

(31:32):
of the boat steers and like, yeah, that's yeah, that's
what I thought of. Two in the growing crew, But
I mean dragon boat, they actually steered a is the
Do they do that in the rowing team? No? The
coxswain doesn't do anything shouting to like a little boy
varsity we're gonna hear it. Probably the coxwayn Society, that's right.

(31:55):
Who you've heard of unless you've been living under a rock,
that's right. Hey, maybe speaking of rock, we should crawl
under one and take a quick break before we talk
about some of the supportive gear and footwear, which is
super exciting stuff. Okay, cool, all right, we'll be right back.

(32:36):
All right, I talked. I promised footwear and supportive gear. Yeah.
Supportive gear you can wear like belts and kneepads and
stuff like that. Or belt huh, like a weightlifting belt. Yeah,
do you ever have one of those? No, I've never
been quite that into it. Yeah, when you show up
to the gym and one of those you're you're sending

(32:57):
a statement, you definitely are. You say, I'm into lifting weights.
That's right, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not making
fun of it, especially if you have like your name
burned into it in some like uh like steer horns
or something, yeah, like that filigree. But the footwear I
talked earlier about friction, I mean, tug of war is

(33:19):
all about feet meeting the ground and that friction and
being able to maintain your place and digging in and
you uh, if you're you know, indoors in a gymnasium,
you're probably just wearing some kind of good sneaker. But
outside you're allowed to wear these big boots and uh
with with big heels. And I guess they regulate this

(33:40):
for competition because you don't want to be like the
English police team, the Liverpool Police and overdo it. But
you are allowed to wear certain kinds of big boots.
You are and again it's like you that's the reason
why you're wearing boots is because that is where you're
winning or losing the game is in your your leg
power and how much contact you have with the ground,

(34:02):
and how much of that you can use to propel
yourself and your team backward, holding onto the rope and
then thus pulling the other team over that center line.
That's right. Should we talk about a match, Yeah, I
think we should. I think we've reached the point we've
laid it out enough, Chuck, that everybody's ready for a
match for us to describe through audio a tug of

(34:23):
war match. All right, So you got that rope slaying
on the ground may or may not be a mud
pit or water in the middle, But for competition, that's
usually like TV kind of stuff. I don't think they
really do that in legit competitions, No, they don't. It's
got to be on turf grass if it's outdoors, or
either a gym floor or a special pad that gives
you a little a lot more traction on an indoor match,

(34:45):
that's right. So there's a judge, I guess, like a referee.
They would say take up the rope. Everyone on each
side would pick up the rope. They would say take
the strain. And that just means you pull it tight
and taught, but you're not like actually pulling on each
other yet and then you have that thing you gotta
they get they center it right in the middle. You've

(35:06):
probably got like something hanging down or some tape in
the center of the rope. He's got to line up
with the center of the of the match floor. And
then on either side, and in true competition, I think
it's actually marked out four meters on either side of center.
But depending on if you're doing playground versions or about
all the network stars, that number can vary. But this

(35:28):
is the official Twiff style. Is four meters is where
you want to pull your opponent. Yes, so that that
center line that's marked on the rope has to be
pulled over either of those other lines on either side.
The sideline marking is what it's called. So if you
pull that center line onto the over the sideline, it's

(35:50):
closest to you, you just want and vice versa. That's right,
I think, Yeah, I think we're doing a great job
here at Chuck. I think so the judge obviously is
going to shout ready, pull and then that's when you start. Yeah,
they shoot a shotgun in the air. Uh, And then
these are actually scored though their matches. Each match has

(36:12):
two tugs or two poles and if you win two
to nothing, if you win both, you get three points.
If you each win one, you each get one point,
and then you just progress sort of in a round
robin kind of way tournament style. Yeah, and then sudden
death is best two poles out of three, I believe, right.
And if you do dig in superstars way, then you're

(36:35):
there for an hour and fifteen minutes. Uh, and nothing's
going on. The judge can say call a no poll,
which I guess is just like a tie. Or if
one team is just really not doing anything, Uh, you
can actually be disqualified. Yes, I think that would be
the no a no poll call if you're not doing anything.
Or I think both teams can get a no poll

(36:56):
call if they both wear each other out and they
both just kind of stop, if they both start laying
around like the seventy eight Royals and whatever football team
they're playing, that would be a clear no pole against
both teams. So they is qualified. Yeah, well I guess
it's I you're both kicked out and both lost. You
all are thrown into the mud pit. That's right by
the judge. So this is this is still going on,

(37:19):
like this is UM. These rules are still being followed
in national and international competition. September of the World Championships
will be in the Netherlands. UM. And there's yeah, there's
plenty of like national and UM and local polls, tug
of war poles um that go on every Sunday. I

(37:42):
believe starting at eleven is the official time wherever your
local time is. If there's a tug of war competition
and they're doing it at eleven am on Sunday, it's
probably official. Yeah, this smacks of the kind of thing
like you know how there's well, I know, you know
there's kickball teams, recreational kickball leagues because you and Arey
famously played on a kickball team together many years ago.

(38:03):
It seems like a hundred years ago, doesn't it a thousand? Maybe? Uh,
there's dart teams, there's Bocci leagues, softball, a bunch of
their local tug of war leagues. Surely there's just no way,
especially after squids games. Yeah, you just get drunk on
on liquor and pull each other into the mud, that's right.

(38:24):
But officially, I think there's seven seventy three countries that
are members of the twit of TWI how many seventy
three by my account according to the rules that were
published in high your account one to right. And then
I keep getting messed up around seventeen or eighteen. And

(38:44):
here's what you do. You copy paste that into the
word die. That's good, just hit number. Yeah, that's a
great idea. But then it does the thing where it
goes one, A and B and you're like, what are
you even doing? Word formatting? And I want it formatted
like that? Right? That program hate word. Yeah, there's a

(39:06):
big word anti word backlash. I suspect this really an
anti Microsoft backlash. I think so. Right, alright, so we're
talking about how to be good at tug of War.
I think, sure, you've got to be strong and have
big shoes, which I'm I realized just now as I'm

(39:27):
looking through my notes, I'm missing that page. But it
also doesn't matter because you basically said what you have
to do, UM, that that you need to wear like
really good shoes that are heavy. You need to have
explosively powerful legs. You need to have arm strength, which
is something that I hope, um, which is something I

(39:48):
think we is worth pointing out. If you are actually
good at Tug of War, and you compete in in
Tug of War competitions and you are doing stuff like
like like world competitions through twift you are an extraordinarily
all around fit person and very strong person because playing
Tug of War in any kind of competitive level requires

(40:11):
a lot of different muscle groups, and all of those
muscle groups have to be really, really strong. That's right.
I guess we could talk a little bit about squid
Game here. If you have not seen it and you
want to, or you don't want something spoiled, just don't
listen for the next couple of minutes. But there's a great,
great pivotal scene in that great show where Um and

(40:31):
the concept of the show is that they're these people
that have been gathered together who are all very desperate,
usually because of money and financial woes, who are pitted
against one another in these childhood games Um to the
death and the winner gets a lot of money here
at the end, and Tug of War is one of them.
And this is a tug of war though that is

(40:52):
stage many many floors up and you fall to your
death and the and you lose like forever as in
your your life has gone that the ultimate loss. So
in squid game, the weaker team pulls out a victory
against a stronger team because of a very brilliant strategy

(41:13):
employed by the elder statesman of the weak team, wherein
they all start out uh with their feet um parallel
to one another dug in and they all the first
thing they do is lean all the way back and
look up at the sky and just set there and
don't move. And then their strategy, I believe was too

(41:33):
at a certain point when one person says so, is
to release the ropes on to get the other team
off balance and then grab it again and start this
hoo hoo hoo, all pulling in these big unified tugs.
And they won. They did when yeah, they this other stronger, heavier,

(41:54):
more fit team um fell to their death because you
left out that you're you're connected to that rope. So
when when one guy goes down there there, they take
the rope with them and thus comes the rest of
the team too. It's pretty pretty brutal, um. But there
was a study that you found Us magazine of all places,

(42:17):
um that that some some people basically experimented with it.
They got a group of like smaller, weaker people compared
to the other team and and use that strategy and
how did it pan out? Well, it didn't pan out
like the TV show. Obviously the TV show was dramatized
for great effect. But I did read and another article

(42:40):
about that same quote unquote study that um, in theory
it could work and this wasn't the best test of it, uh,
and that there was something to that initial a stance
and dig in at least. Okay, So I think we
finally reached like far and away that the absolute the
most interesting part of Tug of war. Yeah, that you

(43:05):
can suffer serious injury and potentially even death from playing
Tug of war if you don't know what you're doing
and you don't do it right. Because people have before. Yeah,
I mean there have been amputations. Obviously, some really awful
accidents with kids when they would wrap their hands around
you know, the rope around their wrists and stuff like that,

(43:25):
little little digits that were had to be amputated. Um.
A lot of the injuries come from the rope snap
that we talked about. Using a nylon rope, it'll pull
like a rubber band and then snap, and that can
has killed people. Yeah, because teams of people, and the
more people you add to a team, the more dangerous
the game becomes for a couple of reasons. One is
the likelihood of snapping a rope is increases. And then

(43:49):
also when that rope snaps, all those people fall back
where all of a sudden, and so people can get
crushed and trampled, and that happens as well. But when
you're when you have two teams of people, even like
little kids, as long as there's enough little kids, they're
exerting tons and tons of force on that rope that's
being stored in the rope. And as I was saying earlier,

(44:11):
with synthetic ropes, they stretch more, which means that more
tension is being stored, more energy is being stored in
that rope, so that when it does finally snap, more
energy is suddenly released. And when it when it's released, chuck.
When that rope snaps backward, it snaps back where it
was so much force depending on how much force is

(44:32):
stored in it, that it is torn people's arms off
like they didn't let go fast enough and their arms
still holding onto the rope flew away from them. That's
like something out of squid game. But it's real. Yeah,
that happened, and I think Taiwan in the in the nineties.
I believe in Taipei happened to not one but two

(44:55):
people who were um playing tug of war. They were
the first people closest to the opposing side on either side.
That's who had their their arms torn off. Yeah. And
here's the word of advice. If you ever see an
ad that says, hey, come down and be a part
of this Guinness World Record tug of war, don't do it. No,
that's a bad idea. Accidents happen there as well. And

(45:18):
like you said, also when if you loop, like do
not ever even even like fun recreation um tug of war,
don't don't loop the rope around your hand because you're
like the force that's being exerted on the rope finds
its way into that loop which wants to close, and
it's closing around your fingers. And like like you said,

(45:38):
not only have people had their fingers amputated later because
they got so torn off, the rope itself can amputate
your fingers, like like you can just lose some fingers
messing around at a local tug of war competition. That's
for charity. It happened, has happened before too, so be
safe everyone. I got one more thing on squid Games,
so again, big spoiler. Come, Okay, don't listen. I'll give

(46:01):
you a few seconds. Okay. The thing I didn't think about,
you saw it through the end of the show. Yeah.
The thing I didn't think about until today was that
that Tug of War game had to be rigged because
the old man was the organizer of the whole thing,
so he wasn't gonna fall to his death, so that
it was rigged. The Tugg of War had to be rigged. Yeah,

(46:22):
but I'm not sure how. And and you might have
found like a plot hole more than anything. Well, I
read online and some people say that like it was
a genuine win. But there were the people up there watching,
like the guards were like ready to step in in
case it looked like that he was gonna get pulled
in or something. I got you, So it was, uh,

(46:44):
they could have cut the rope or something to prevent
that from happening, but then the jig would have been up. Yeah,
or they could have think maybe they had a plan
to make it seem like, you know, there was something
that some however, but those guards, man, how well done?
Was there uniform just to make them just creepy? Anonymous?
Yeah it was. It was awesome. I really love the show.

(47:05):
I can't wait for what's coming in season two? Me whoa,
Is there gonna be a season two? Yeah? I mean
it ends with dude coming back as a genuine tough dude,
like going back. Remember he could have left and he
went back. Yes, but I didn't know that there was
definitely going to be a season two. Yeah. Yeah, he's
gonna go back there like like uh Jack Black and

(47:28):
Kung Fu Panda Terminator two. Yeah, they're okay, there you go.
I think that's a more apt and let her name
Linda Hamilton's Yeah, okay, I thought I got it wrong. No,
you got it right, man, just like you got a
tug of war? Right? But did we did? We? Did? We? Did?
You got anything else? No? No tic tac to. I

(47:49):
promise we're done with this two part series. All right? Uh? Well,
since Chuck said we're done, that means we're done, and
that means, of course, everybody, it's time for listener mail.
Unless we do thumb wrestling. If there's something to it, sure,
maybe a shorty. I'm always down with with interesting stuff

(48:09):
like that as long as there's something to it, you know.
All Right, I'm gonna call this eagle versus Hawk and
another chance to poke fun at Jerry a little bit.
This this goes down in history alongside the Billhelms scream. Oh,
I don't forget same old lang sign. Oh that's right.
So yeah, our beloved sister and producer Jerry, who we

(48:30):
like to tease. Occasionally we will call for a special
effect here and there, and she sometimes she has in
that for getting them wrong. And that's the case with
eagle versus Hawk. Hey, guys, just listen to the Cookies
episode and heard the eagle cry quote unquote denoting the
golden age of cookies. I want to let you know
that bird cry use was probably a red tailed hawk.
Hollywood prefers the red tailed hawk cry to the actual

(48:51):
eagle cry because it sounds much more majestic. The first
time I ever heard an eagle make a noise, I
thought for sure it was a giant mutant chicken. Uh,
much more of an aggressive cluck. Definitely understand why Hollywood
makes his choice, but I remember being gooped by this fact.
I never heard that use that way, so I wanted
to share it with you all. Thanks and heavy, happy,

(49:12):
have a happy New Year. In my defense, I knew
that was a hawk, but the eagles sound was so
pitiful I didn't use it. Hey, there's Jerry. Guys. She
actually stepped in to defend herself. There she is, Chuck.
I feel like an error has just ended. Well, she's
been on before, but that was the most blatant Jerry.

(49:32):
It was yet pretty blatant, but I think that was
a good one. Jerry's way to step in. Uh ps,
is your board game sold out? I was sad to
not see it under the Christmas tree this year. Cordially
your resident Burdenard Katie Rose Souder Katie. The board game
did sell out in some and a lot of online retailers,
but it's verywhere be back soon, right, I actually, Chuck,

(49:54):
I think that there. I don't know if they're sold
out or not. That they were sold out everywhere in
the world except for Indigo, which is Canada's largest bookstore.
They had some as of the beginning of the holiday
season earlier, but they may be out. But from what
are our friends at Hasbro tell us they should be
back in stock at the end of this month, end

(50:15):
of January. That's right. But anyway, thank you Katie Rose
Sounder for that email. Yes, thank you Katie Rose. Uh.
And if you want to be like Katie Rose and
uh send us an email you can. You can wrap
it up, spank it on the eagles butt and send
it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.

(50:38):
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