Feet Fighting

Chuukese boys are extremely athletic. When they grow up, they often end up as blubbery balls of sloth that are too lazy to swat the flies on their face. But when they are young, they are sculpted statues of chiseled muscle. They have a combination of strength, speed and balance that has been cultivated by generations of island survival tasks. I have seen little boys that climb better than monkeys, swim better than sharks and eat faster than ravenous wolves. By the time that they reach puberty, the veins are bulging in the brawny biceps and their stomachs have taken on the consistency of a brick wall. They dig, chop, pound, climb and fish every day of their lives, and after a while it begins to add notches of slim muscle across their little bodies.

Remote island life on a forest hillside doesn't provide many opportunities to play sports. So they have found other ways to showcase their athletic ability. My favorite way is the feet fights, which they called nifot. The boys place their hands on the ground and flip their bodies upwards as stiff as a pencil. They kink their legs into ready position and then charge. Epic battles of upside down kick fighting ensue where they try to knock the other guy down by kicking him off balance. These brown balls of muscle scuttle around in a circle of heckling onlookers and splay their legs in wild kicks against the shins of their opponents. When one goes down, a challenger immediately takes his place and fights to dethrone the reigning champ. It kind of reminds of me of chicken fighting in the swimming pool, but this is way more badass.

There are few things that make this sport truly unique. Firstly, the ability to walk on your hands is no easy task. Actually it is really fucking hard. I have tried a number of times and been laughed at mirthlessly by crowds of muscular tots. I tend to think I am a little above average in my strength and coordination, but compared to these boys I am a hopeless fool. When your manhood is challenged by an 8 year old who proceeds to take it, smash it and then spit on its pathetic carcass, you don't exactly score very high on the confidence meter.

I remember one time when I was a little kid and I saw my Uncle Mike walk on his hands across a hallway. That five feet of hand walking was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. I was awed by the fact that he could have the balance and strength to do such a thing. The other America that I saw walk on their hands was a fellow volunteer named Julie. Julie is a collegiate level gymnast and has been training for 15 years to gain the skills necessary to maintain such a careful balance. Julie and Mike are highly esteemed in my book of coolness for their hand walking, but from what I have seen over here, I think they would loose easily to most of this island boys.

The other thing that makes the feet fights so surprising is that pretty much every single boy can do it. Even the little tikes seem to do it with ease. They flip up and can walk around for minutes at a time without noticeably struggling at all. Its not a skill reserved for the rare athletic specimen. It's a universal talent.

When I worked at an elementary school back in Irvine, most of my students  were either too fat, too scared, too nerdy or too rich to play much of anything. Their chubby McDonald’s bellies and manicured toenails were in stark contrast to the chiseled abs and calloused palms of my students now. I would bet a $100 that not a single kid at my elementary school in Irvine could walk on his hands for more than 5 seconds. I would also bet that same $100 that you couldn't find more than 5 kids in my Chuuk elementary school that couldn't walk on their hands for 5 minutes.

After interacting with the youth of Chuuk and observing them in action, this is my conclusion about their athleticism in comparison to Americans. The average Chuukese athlete is a hell of a lot better than the average American athlete. But the elite American athletes outshine the elite Chuukese athletes by a longshot. If I chose a random person from Chuuk and a random person from America, I could almost guarantee that the Chuukese guy would kick his ass. . If there was a battle royale with barehanded combat, the Chuukese would wipe the slate with Americans because of the superiority of the majority.  But if I took the best athlete in Chuuk and matched him against Lebron James, I could almost guarantee that Lebron would dominate in any sport they played. That's why America is number one in Olympic sports and is atop the world in athletic competitions. But the Chuukese do hold an edge in some categories, and I don't think it's a good idea for Michael Phelps to challenge a chuukese teenager to a fight (with hands or feet).