Joyful Competition

"Junkyard Sports" is on its way to everywhere. There is a junkyardsports.com - currently parked. It's an all-but-registered trademark. And it's the title for a a book that will be published this August. But it wasn't really until yesterday, when I finally put a few clips of it online, that I felt the idea of Junkyard Sports was finally "packaged," finally made available to basically the world.

It just so happened that Marah, one of the players in the DeepFUN 2003 Winter seminar at the Esalen Institute, had a digital video camera. And it almost equally just so happened that we were planning to play Junkyard Sports that very afternoon. We had this beautiful, large "Dance Dome" for our play space. Using whatever we could find, and my sockball collection, we divided into two teams, created two different sports, and spent the rest of the session playing.

Given the collective ingenuity and creativity, both of the newly devised Junkyard Sports proved unique and fun and very much worth playing. But it wasn't only the new sports, but also the way they were played, that captured the real meaning I want us to be able to give to the term Junkyard Sports. And there it is, in the last clip, the one called "We're Number ?" - a moment of vivid, clear, self-evident, joyful competition - the very esssence of Junkyard Sports - for you and the rest of the world to see.

Bernie DeKoven, Funsmith