As odd as these three sporting activities may be, they all share two common threads: the sense of community that bridges cultural, gender and age gaps and the fact that they are fast gaining in popularity across the nation. Read on to find out why they’re scoring points with residents.
1 Roller derby
If many of Dubai’s and Abu Dhabi’s female residents are to be believed, there’s nothing more rewarding than strapping on a pair of roller skates, joining a team of strong women and using your body to hit each other out of the way in a quest to earn points. Roller derby is one of the world’s fastest-growing alternative competitive sports and is more common among women, though there are men’s leagues as well. First played in the 1930s in Chicago, it was revived only a few years ago in Texas.
The sport is played in a bout of 60 minutes, broken into two 30-minute periods. Each team comprises four blockers and one jammer, who skate two minutes at a time. The jammer’s role is to score points for her team by passing the hips of opposing team members, while blockers play both defence and offence.
Though there’s fair risk of injury, the sport attracts a dedicated following. It all began in Dubai during 2012 when Briton Dani Connell and Liz ‘On Ya’ Wright from Montreal, Canada, set up a league in the UAE. Now Abu Dhabi also has its own league and the two teams competed in a mixed exhibition bout in April.
Namitha Jassem (aka Whirl Domination), an aerospace engineer at a UAE company, started playing in 2013 when she heard about it from a friend. “I hadn’t skated in many years, so I had to learn basic skills and agility,” she says.
With the game’s reputation for ferocity, players wear safety gear to protect them from injury. However, broken bones and muscle sprains and tears are a reality. So what prompts these players to take the risk?
“The Dubai group is as diverse as the city with several nationalities, ages and backgrounds,” explains Jassem. “It’s like a sisterhood for women. It took me 22 years to find a group of people I really connect with and now I view the city in a completely different way. Derby gives me both mental and physical confidence.”
Get involved: Join the groups’ Facebook pages (there are separate ones for Dubai and Abu Dhabi) or go to a recreational session from 8-9pm at Al Sufouh Secondary School for Girls in Dubai every Monday.
2 Ultimate Frisbee
If you haven’t seen a team playing Ultimate Frisbee on the beach, it’s time to head down to Jumeirah Beach Residence on a Friday afternoon and find out what you’re missing. This sport is on the rise in the UAE, with the World Championships of Beach Ultimate hosted in Dubai last March, bringing down 1,200 competitors from 40 countries.
Drawing on the rules of American football and basketball, the sport has five players on each team (with unlimited substitutions allowed), who try to move the frisbee to a teammate in an end zone. When a player takes possession of the frisbee, he cannot run with it but can throw it to a teammate by pivoting on one leg, and the team can make any number of passes in any direction. A team wins the match by reaching 13 points, or leading after 45 minutes. The game is played on both sand and grass.
Patrick Fourcampre-Maye, President of the United Arabian Ultimate (UAU), the sport’s local association, was introduced to it through a friend. “After a team went to Italy in 2011, we started getting organised,” he says. When a game video was picked up by the Beach Ultimate Lovers Association, it sparked the idea of Dubai as championships host city, which raised the sport’s profile across the region.
Ultimate Frisbee attracts a very mixed yet close-knit community of players. “There are two Emiratis (one was the first to ever score in a World Championship), a new player who works as a security guard, there’s a Filipino team that practises in Zabeel Park, but mostly we’re just a mix of people of different backgrounds and professions,” he says. “And whether you’re tall, short, large or skinny, anyone can play — one of our best players is the shortest guy here.”
There are four teams: open, women, mixed and the professional Grand Master’s team.
The teamwork brings players closer together, he adds. “It’s self-officiated, which means players have to learn to work together to resolve conflicts and see the bigger picture.”
Get involved: Like the UAU Facebook page or go to a 4.30pm Friday-afternoon pickup at Jumeirah Beach Residence ,where anyone can play
3 Parkour
If you’ve seen seemingly fearless individuals jumping from a wall on to a railing or leaping across vast open spaces, including between buildings, you’ve seen one of the hottest new sports in the UAE in action. “Parkour is the art of overcoming obstacles in the fastest and most efficient way possible,” says Iyad Al Mrouj, a 19-year-old, Abu-Dhabi-based Jordanian expat and member of UAE Parkour. The mechanical engineer discovered the sport over the internet after watching the French movie B-13 and has been practising it for five years.
Using just the body and running shoes, traceurs, as practitioners are called, run, jump, skip, climb, vault and roll past — or through — any type of obstacle. The name comes from the French word parcour meaning the way through. The sport was popularised in France in the 1980s before slowly spreading to other countries, including the UAE, where it has found a loyal and diverse fanbase. It is mostly practised by young men, but there’s a growing movement of traceuses, or female athletes, in the region, particularly in Iran.
Though the sport looks daredevil, the risk of injury is surprisingly small if you know what you’re doing. “If you go for a jump that you can’t possibly do, you will probably end up hurting yourself,” he says. “I’ve had more friends break bones playing soccer than doing parkour. But you do need to be dedicated and believe in yourself.”
Al Mrouj says the feeling of being able to do things he wasn’t able to do before is strong motivation to become the best possible traceur he can be. Parkour is good for general health. It helps with fear of heights and boosts self-confidence. But Al Mrouj’s favourite aspect is the sense of community he’s discovered with the sport: “You can go to any city in the world and find people to train with you and who will invite you to stay at their place.”
Get involved: Visit Uaeparkour.com, or head to Khalifa Park, Abu Dhabi or Zabeel Park, Dubai to see it in action.
