New York City, come play THE LOST SPORT Saturday June 7 @ Central Park!

Getting ready to brake the record...
Originally uploaded by ring.digger.

The ancient Greeks banned it, but we’re playing it anyway! If you're in New York City, COME OUT AND PLAY...

2000 years ago, the ancient Greeks played a game they called simply "The Labyrinth." Until recently, little has been known about the mysterious sport - only that it required the athletes to be blindfolded, and that eventually it was banned from their Olympics games. Now, the rules for the lancient abyrinth have been rediscovered - and for the first time in modern history, the world will learn to play the Labyrinth again.

On Saturday June 7, 2008, come learn the sport and participate in a labyrinth race - or just come to watch, as The Lost Sport of Olympia is rediscovered in New York City.

Come early at 4:30 PM if you want to learn the history of the lost sport and pick up super sneaky game strategies! Meet at the fountain at the Columbus Circle Entrance to Central Park. You must arrive by 5 PM to come with us! (If you’re late, we’ll leave a clue chalked on the pavement to help you find us...) Play the game 5-6 PM at a secret hidden location in Central Park.

The top 5 reasons why you should come play The Lost Sport:

1) It’s really easy to learn the lost sport. All it requires is a blindfold (which we provide!), trust, courage, and collaboration with the other 100 people who show up to play.

2) It’s a big, global secret. You’ll be training in NYC while other alternate reality Olympians are training in Tokyo, Madrid, London, San Francisco, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Wellington, and more. We’ll get to compare our cities’ best times against theirs, and compete to create the fastest labyrinths.

3) You’ll be really good at the lost sport, practically a world champion. It hasn’t been played in over 2000 years, so we are setting all kinds of world records! And think about it. When else are you going to get to compete against, and maybe even BECOME, the world’s best of a sport?

4) For the NYC event, we’re playing under the bridges in Central Park – it’s super atmospheric and fun, plus you get a bonus perspective-changing experience: In the future, whenever you pass the bridges, you’ll think of them as a super secret athletic training space where you competed … fun, fun, fun!!!

5) There’s a neat online backstory/urban legend about the lost sport that connects it with SAVING THE WORLDS. (Yes, worlds. The backstory is a geeky, quantum multiverse adventure.) You can learn the legend, and you can follow the larger online adventure/alternate reality game.

What are you waiting for? Invite friends and RSVP:

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Upcoming.org
Come Out and Play Festival website

VIDEOS: The ancient Greeks banned it, but we're playing it anyway!

Labyrinth runners of the world, watch out! Team San Francisco is getting good at this stuff.

Okay, maybe not good at it. But we ARE having an awesome time.

There were about 20 of us, and we practiced for 30 minutes on a giant 7-circuit labyrinth, using a real clew set up (yarn).

We don't want to give too many of our special awesome labyrinth running strategies away. Because, you know. We want to be the world champions someday. But watch this video to see one of the more memorable moments in the practice session... can you figure out what's happening here?



Now, check out Team Zurich training for the labyrinth. Seriously, the difference between our approach and their approach is hysterically awesome. They are so awesomely deadly serious and restrained! I love it.



Team Wellington shows they are hard-core by training in the rain and clocking the best recorded 3-circuit time to date (1:00 minute flat.) My favorite part of this video is when they reveal at the end that they were also training in the way of moving vehicles, lol. I'm glad they had some excellent sophrosune talent to referee and keep everyone safe!



There a lots of training videos coming out of Brazil, but I like this one from Natal that focuses on making the labyrinth pattern (which for some folks is more fun than running it!)



The Canadians have the most courageous runner by far clearly, that is some pretty aggressive running for someone wearing a blindfold! Not to mention the entire team played in the snow, using spraypaint to make their labyrinth. Their long-form training video is below.



These are just some of the videos coming in... more from Berlin, Madrid, Jerusalem, Buenos Aires soon...

Get the backstory on why we're training for a lost sport that the ancient Greeks mysteriously banned...