I first learned of the game this summer while at Sharptop Cove. It's an intense mix between four square and volleyball, described on the Spikeball web site as “A taut Hula Hoop-sized net is placed at ankle level between a pair of two-player teams. You smack the palm-sized ball down on the net so it ricochets up at your opponents. They have up to three hits between them to control it and bounce it back to you. When they miss, you score. First team to 21 wins.”
The makers of Spikeball would like to offer a special discount to Young Life leaders via The Young Life Leader Blog. To purchase a discounted Spikeball set, visit the Spikeball.com website and enter the code "YL" during checkout. This will give you a 10% discount along with an additional set of 2 extra Spikeballs. (Makes a great Christmas gift for your YL Area Director!)
Here's a video of the Spikeball craze that has caught on at Harvard:
You can also be entered to win a FREE SPIKEBALL SET by leaving a comment below. In the comment, please share your favorite pre-club yard game or activity to do with kids. We will hold a random drawing next Wednesday morning (Nov. 16) with the names of everyone who left comments on this post and award a FREE SPIKEBALL SET to one lucky winner.
whoa! this looks awesome! my favorite pre-club activity is ducking from all of the things flying in the air...frisbees, footballs, food... i feel like i spend most of the time near the ground trying to not get hit!
ReplyDeleteOur favorite pre-Club activity is eating Chick-fil-A nuggets before all the boys get there and gobble up the whole platter!
ReplyDeleteDEATHHACK! Greatest yard game ever! You can play with a soccer ball, dodgeball, 4 square ball...anything really (I like 4 square balls the best). The rules are pretty simple: It is a combination of hacky sack and dodgeball (hence death hack).
ReplyDelete1- Everyone stands in a circle and someone starts by tossing the ball up in the air lightly and announces "This is death hack" to signal the beginning of the round.
2- You can use anything you can use in soccer to hit the ball (feet, head, knee, chest, etc). Once the ball has been passed 2 times (3 different players have made contact) the game turns into dodgeball.
3- Whoever grabs the ball can't move but everyone else can do whatever they want (run away, post up for a catch, tackle the person with ball, etc).
4- If you are hit with a thrown ball you are out. If you catch the ball, the person who threw it is out (same rules as dodgeball).
NOTE: The one key with this game is ANYTIME the ball hits the ground it is dead and a new round begins. That means if someone throws the ball and it is caught, it can still be thrown to get someone out and so on...as long as the ball hasn't hit the ground it is live!
We have been known to play a mean game of Ninja as well as dance parties. Some of the best wobble-rs you'll ever see. Our clubs have been outside and that has allowed us to be loud and crazy. SpikeBall would an awesome addition to our Club. This our first year to have YL at Beauregard HS and Have been blessed to have been able to start club less than a year into being on campus.
ReplyDeleteI got to see this played during our Leader Retreat and it was as entertaining to watch as it was to play!
ReplyDeleteThat looks awesome! By far, the favorite pre-club game for us is Fricket. It is so cheap and everyone wants to play! Spikeball seems like it would create the same excitement!
ReplyDeleteThis looks like so much fun! My favorite preclub thing to do is take pictures. The girls never seem to get sick of having their photos taken and chat!
ReplyDeletePre club frisbee in the dark! Soon to be spike ball!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely some Ninja! Although, I did learn Spikeball at a leader weekend (S/O to Luke Sadler for sharing)!!! Pretty AWESOME! I'm buying one for the fam regardless!
ReplyDelete3 and a peg. Hacky sack meets dodgeball.
ReplyDeleteJustin chandler
We bought a few glow-in-the-dark frisbees this fall which have been a huge hit now that it's dark before we go in for club. they really are way cooler than i thought they would be. but i want to try spikeball!
ReplyDeleteAmy Fanning
Favorite game to play is pelt. I always feel bad for the groups of girls that stand behind and get hit on accident.
ReplyDelete4aquare ping pong. Two ping pong tables and you play just like four square. Pretty awesome
ReplyDeleteBefore wyld life club we play football. Nothing to crazy but the guys love and this past week the girls got in on the action! Its great and an easy go to!
ReplyDeletemy fav. pre-club game is always 4-square. classic. but spikeball would be an AWESOME addition, and we have a huge garden behind our club room so it would be perfect for it!
ReplyDeleteOur favorite pre-Club tradition is GAGA - middle schoolers love it, so much that our seniors in high school remember it and requested to start playing it!
ReplyDeleteYou will need:
-6 10ft long wood or laminate planks
-hinges to connect planks together
-drill and parts necessary to build
-tennis ball
Drill holes in both ends of the each plank to install the hinges... make sure the hinges are ones you can easliy take the pin out of, in order to store the game with 2 planks connected. Once all of the planks are connected, it should create a large enclosed hexagon-shape, with the game played in the middle!
Game play:
-Everyone begins standing in the hexagon-plank "field." One person serves by hitting a tennis ball against one of the inside walls of the planks.
-People in the field will try to slap the tennis ball towards the feet of others. No scooping up, grabbing, throwing, or catching the tennis ball. It can only be hit across the ground towards feet/another plank (so the ball will be moving quickly on the ground and bounce off of plank walls.) Best way to avoid tennis ball is to jump around like crazy.
-if the tennis ball hits you anywhere from the knee-down, you are out and must exit the field.
-If you hit the tennis ball and it goes out of the hexagon without hitting anyone/a plank, you're out.
-The goal is to be the last person standing without getting hit!
-Special rule with two people left in the field: everyone who is out can kneel down around the sides of the field and hit the tennis ball when it comes to them; if you hit a person that is in, you are back in and the person you hit is out. Makes the game even harder to win with multiple switches and people on the sides!
Knee football is always a great time!
ReplyDeletesimple tackle football in the cold with Wyldlifers. They could never be more happy.
ReplyDeleteJust plain old hacky is fun, but death hack is definitely a good twist to mix it up. It is explained earlier in the comments.
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome! One game our kids love playing before club and during down time at camp/fallweekends is ninja, once they started playing it they NEVER stopped.
ReplyDeletekaKOW! My favorite pregame is called buck buck. This is a game where two teams are made matching by sizes. One team makes a wall that the other team tries to jump onto and pull down one by one. Points are given by holding up the wall or knocking it down. Then the teams switch. Certain safety practices are taken, and it usually ends up in a goofy dog pile. =)
ReplyDeleteI think I might have been on Summer Staff when you first learned of Spike Ball! We played it all the time at SharpTop Cove. It's a great game. We most often just play catch, but spike ball would be a great addition.
ReplyDeletePlaying Ninja with a bunch of middle schoolers!
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is my new christmas gift?
ReplyDeleteWe love having a mean dance off to get the energy flowing before we go in! We also play lots of football and frisbee
ReplyDeleteNinja is an awesome game to play with a bunch of people just hanging out! Also, something called Kendama is really big right now so there's a bunch of people playing that. SO much fun!
ReplyDeleteWe play a game Standing on the lines of four square...the goal is to keep your feet on the lines but push or pull other people off. As long as you keep one foot on, you are still in. Last one standing wins. This is a great question.....Good feedback.
ReplyDeleteThis year before club, we just eat snacks and hang around with kids. The leaders get there an hour and a half early and eat dinner as a family. Then when the kids show up, our host always has snacks and we stand around and graze on the snacks with them and talk.
ReplyDeleteIf outside, link tag is a hit. When we're inside with a ping pong table, Round Robin is always the best!
ReplyDeleteFavorite pre-club event? NINJA! We can get a mad game going outside in the parking lot!
ReplyDeleteOur Junior Boys invented what they call, "Tron" which is essentially dodgeball with hulu hoops instead of balls, (and also, you can't get out) that they throw side arm at each other as hard as they can. We now wrap the hulu hoops in foam to lessen the damage, but it's pretty fun to watch!
ReplyDeleteWe play 4-square before everyclub but this seems even more intense!! AWESOME
ReplyDeleteI've been looking for a cheap set of Spikeball since our leadership summit this September. Hoping for the free set, but I'll be getting one pretty much no matter what. If anyone else has club tonight, blessings and good luck!
ReplyDeleteIn Moscow, Idaho, we either play ninja or 4-square. So fun.
ReplyDeletemy favorite pre club activity is playing corn hole, throwing a frisbee, and the best is having a dunk contest with the guys on a elemntary size basketball hoop.
ReplyDeleteIn Bismarck, ND we play street-rules 4-square. We played 9-square at Castaway last weekend and it really opened some doors for us.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely DeathHack. So clutch.
ReplyDeleteWe love playing ninja and singing HEY BURRITO like crazy people! But our ore club activity might just have to change to spikeball because this looks awesome!! Thanks YL Leader blog!!
ReplyDeleteOur favorite club game is ninga too! Either that or signs. I love this spikeball thing, that sounds awesome.
ReplyDeleteNINJA every time. Kids love it.
ReplyDeleteI love playing penguin soccer!
ReplyDeleteNinja and cornhole for sure!
ReplyDeleteYou can't go wrong with ultimate frisbee or just throwing around the football. I have played 'Human Slingshot' with some guys before...but that can definitely get dangerous. Keepin it simple
ReplyDeleteThis could be the greatest thing our YL club has EVER seen. So cool!
ReplyDeleteFootball and Frisbee! Good fun! Spikeball will be even better!
ReplyDeleteNinja and basketball, football, and Frisbee are our favorite games now.
ReplyDeleteThis looks so cool!
pre club cookout!!
ReplyDeletethis is a phenomenal way just to see what everyone does before club...
ReplyDeletemy favorite right now is some dodgeball in the dark - it's great for the fellas, but the ladies haven't really taken to it
several folks now have talked up spikeball, sounds big time!
Peel the onion... All the guys sit/lay on the floor and link arms/legs/whatever... then you put a song on and the girls try to pull the guys apart. if any the guys can hang on until the song is over the guys win. If girls pull them apart, they win. They love it, may wanna play it outside. Once the guys are pulled free from the group they're eliminated. they can go back in the pile and reconnect. But if they're pulled apart in a group of 2 or more, those guys can relink/connect.
ReplyDeleteLooks like pure awesomesauce! We like ninja for sure...or ultimate frisbbee before campaigners!
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