Unique student sports

We are a school of athletes. In the halls, sports bags are as abundant as silly bands. Dribbling a soccer ball, shooting a free throw, swimming a fifty meter race, or smashing a volley ball comes second nature to many of the students who strut through the Aragon halls. But while running non-stop for ten miles or sinking a half-court shot is impressive, they are not as surprising as seeing a boy casually back-flipping over the pavement.

While Aragon offers a multitude of amazing, challenging sports, many of our students forgo these convenient teams in favor of a sport outside of school.

A warm Thursday afternoon finds junior Ali Imani in the wrestling room showing off examples of amazing, athletic feats to an intrigued crowd. The sport Imani is presenting is what he calls, “The underground sport of tricking”.

Imani speaks of how he started his career as an expert in martial arts, and then parkour. After growing tired of parkour, he began “free-running,” a sport that can be compared to gymnastics on rooftops.

Imani, however, was still not satisfied. He became increasingly interested in what can only be called a blend of dance, martial arts and gymnastics, a spectacle known as “tricking”.

Tricking (martial arts tricking) is the informal name of a relatively new underground alternative sport movement, combining martial arts, gymnastics, and other activities to create an “aesthetic blend of flips, kicks, and twists.” Tricking is quite a lot like gymnastics or extreme martial arts, but focuses more on an almost dance-like aspect, which is incorporated in moves such as the Corkscrew, a back flip and a spin combined into one spectacular stunt. It is hard to believe some of these moves are humanly possible until seeing tricking experts like sophomore Miles Lang casually perform them. Lang and Imani both agree that while these moves seem to be very challenging, they, and most other tricking moves are, “95% mental, and mastering your fear, and 5% physical strength”.

“Tricking is still a bit underground so there aren’t many formal competitions or teams. But it’s on the rise,” says Imani. Tricking professionals are hardly underground though.

A popular new web show “The League of Extraordinary Dancers” is based around extreme tricking moves combined in dance to create and extraordinary fusion of rhythm and acrobatics. The show’s popularity (seen by its 56,000 fans on facebook) shows how entertaining tricking can be.

Imani agrees, saying that he takes tricking as almost more a performance than a competitive sport. “Once me and a couple of friends were on Burlingame Avenue after a tricking session in a gym…and we basically started tricking back and forth on the streets of Burlingame Ave, and taking pics and videos of the action,” Imani recounts. An impressed crowd of onlookers soon gathered to watch this impressive impromptu performance.

However, tricking is not the only sport outside of school that’s hooking Aragon students. Cycling is an increasingly popular sport, with the Tour de France and Lance Armstrong paving the way to national press coverage, yet it still remains a relatively alternative sport in the USA.

Sophomore Sam Sokolsky is an avid cyclist outside of Aragon. Cycling, unlike tricking, has much more organized events and many competitive races. Although Sokolsky has not competed in many races, he has taken part in many organized, long distance rides.

Sokolsky recalls his favorite of these, the Davis Double Century a “…nationally acclaimed, 200-mile, one-day cycling event through scenic Northern California hills,” according to davisclub.org. Sokolsky explains, “Davis Double Century is this ride that around 1000 people do every year and I had to wake up at 4 am because it starts at 5 am. It was fun for around the first 10 hours or so but then the fatigue hit in and I was basically dragging myself to the next rest stop to stuff down as many cookies as I could, and then get back on the bike. Finally, just as it was dark, to glorious finish sign was ahead.”

At the finish, after biking for fifteen hours, Sokolsky had covered an incredible 200 miles on his own power.

When asked why he thinks Aragon does not offer cycling, Sokolsky explains “not enough people do it, and there [aren’t] any other schools that we could compete against”. He says that not having cycling at Aragon means “there isn’t a coach to tell me how to train and I get to do it a lot less,” making it a definite inconvenience to not have as an option at school.
With tricking on the rise, and cycling gaining enthusiasts every day, students should keep their eyes open for teams and clubs popping up at Aragon, and other schools.

Video courtesy of YouTube:

• Ali Imani and Friends Tricking
• Professionals Battle
• An old video of Ali Imani
• Ali and Ben go to Quickly