Our affection for the Indian sport of kabaddi is well-known around these parts. But our taste in the athletics of the subcontinent doesn’t always run toward the brutal, as proven by the soft spot we’ve recently developed for kho-kho, which can perhaps be best described as a formalized version of freeze tag. We won’t pretend to understand all the rules, but there’s nothing too tricky about the core concept: attackers lunge after defenders, and success is achieved by laying hands on an evasive opponent.
Best of all, we now have ironclad scientific proof that kho-kho attracts far gentler souls than the rough-and-tumble kabaddi:
This study was undertaken at the Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India, in 2005, to determine the level of aggressive tendency among sport persons (n=50) of Kabaddi and Kho-kno games. Results showed that the mean value of aggressive behaviour of Kabaddi players was higher than that of Kho-Kho players at 0.05 level of significance. It is concluded that the players of Kabaddi games had more aggressive behaviour than that of Kho-Kho players.
Some Karnatakan legends of the sport listed here. Funny how several of them ended up as cops once their playing days were done—Shaq would certainly approve.
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