It’s hard to pinpoint exactly at what time during my introductory session to Octopush that I realised I had been quick to judge a book by its cover. Perhaps it was when, in an underwater skirmish, I received first an elbow and then a flipper to the face in swift succession. Or maybe it was the numerous times I almost choked on my snorkel, gasping for breath and arms flapping in a vain attempt to stay afloat. Octopush, I came to appreciate, is not a game for the faint hearted.
Having only been made aware of the existence of Octopush two days previously, I was at best skeptical of the sport’s merits. I have never been a great swimmer, and the early signs weren’t good as the trunks I’d borrowed from a larger flat mate struggled to resist gravity’s indecent pull.
Sitting down on the edge of the pool, experienced Octopush player Tom took me through the basics. In Octopush you wear flippers, a mask and a snorkel. Playing in teams of six with four substitutes the simple aim is to maneuver the puck underwater around the opposition and into their goal. With three attackers and three defenders on each team, Octopush is perhaps most easily described as underwater hockey. Each player has a small curved stick with which to hit the puck, and competitive games are normally divided into two fifteen-minute halves.
With this in mind, an admirably patient Tom led myself and another new recruit through some practice exercises. At the start of each half and after each goal the puck is dropped in the centre of the playing area, and the three attackers from each team have to sprint to the middle of the pool before diving down to the floor in a race to grab the puck and start in possession. This dive beneath the surface is known as a ‘duck dive’, and the first ten minutes were spent practicing this ungainly movement, with yours truly bearing a striking resemblance not to a duck but a drowning rat.
We then practiced sprinting, diving underwater and moving the puck along the floor of the pool. Simple in principle, what was hard about this was timing your dive so that you took a deep enough breath before descending to last more than five seconds underwater. Feeling that we were now ready, or at least better prepared than we were at the start of the session, Tom brought us into the game.
My memory of the fifteen minutes I spent playing octopush is a bit of blur. Loose limbs, furious jabs and sharp kicks abounded as I attempted to get involved in what was an underwater war. As one octopush player knowingly put it to me before I got into the pool, octopush is a constant effort to stop yourself from drowning. Seeing an opposition player swim dangerously close to the goal, I would dive down only to rush up moments later, disorientated and gasping for breath. Whenever I could stay underwater for more than a few seconds the speed and aggression of play was incredible to witness. Often in trying to move the puck there would not only be someone directly in front but also below and above you, all willing to take and inflict a few hits in order to retrieve possession. The recovery time of players who came up for air was astonishing, and by the end of the practice match I was left exhausted and dizzy, but in awe of this underwater demonstration of controlled skill and violence.
Octopush has a lot more to it than the flippers and snorkel image lets on. With open practice sessions* and friendly club members, it is a university sport with a lot to offer.
*Open practice sessions are from 9-10pm every Monday and 4-4:45pm every Saturday. A minibus to the pool leaves from James College cash point at 8.20 pm and 3:20pm respectively.