Stuff You Should Know - Tug of War

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

Tug of War is a simple display of strength, but is there more to it than that? Listen in to find out.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's even here, believe it or not, and we're thrilled for that. And this is Stuff You Should Know,

okay? Stop asking. That's right. I want to say this is part two of the rudimentary games that there is seemingly more to than you would think, starting with Roshambo or almost a tic-tac-toe again. What's my deal with that? I don't know man. Rock, paper, scissors. Sure. But I must admit, there is more to rock, paper, scissors than tug-of-war. I'm very glad that I didn't have to get that out of you. Yeah, I thought there would, I thought there was more to it than this, strategy-wise. And I think I was suckered by Squid Game, which we'll talk about a little bit later, into thinking that there could be some more depth to this. Right. There's not a whole lot.

No, apparently Squid Games really took something and made something huge out of it because, I mean, it was even an Olympic sport for a little while and the Olympics were like, let's not do that anymore. Yeah, although I have to say growing up in this 80s, it was a lot more in the forefront because like Battle of the Network stars did it on TV. Do you remember the superstars? No. It was a sports competition show on Sunday afternoons and it took prominent athletes from all sports and pitted them against one another all season long to determine a champion. And there was this great obstacle course, it was one of the most sort of 80s, aside from American Gladiators, kind of things that you

could watch. Yeah. And there was a tug of war usually between two teams comprised of like prominent football players versus prominent baseball players and that was always a big deal. In fact, I just watched a recap of the one hour and 15 minute epic battle from 1978 between members of the Kansas City Royals and I don't know who the other side was. I think it was a football team. Was George Brett on that team yet? You bet your buddy was. Was that his rookie year? No, but it was Prebo Jackson though, right? No, no, no, Prebo Jackson, yeah. But that was pretty epic and on that one they were, I mean, they were laying down in the sand and resting some guys taking their hands off at times.

It was, you know, all the rules, you know, they tied the rope around their waist, as did Lou Ferrigno in Battle of the Network stars, is the anchor, all kinds of things that you don't do, which we'll talk about in true competition tug of war. But it was just sort of, I feel like we saw tug of war a lot more in the 80s than we do now. Yeah, that and running under a giant parachute that your classmates were billowing up for you. That's the second reference I've heard of that in a week. Oh, really? Yeah, I never did that. But oh, Chuck, we're going to get some, we're going to get some stuff you should know listeners together and do that because you have to experience it at least once in your life. It is thrilling.

I need to. It was on the 3Dim podcast, so Paula Tompkins and Aukerman and Lauren Leipkitz were talking about that. It's a lot of fun. We're going to, I'm going to, like that is going to happen before you die. All right. Okay. You run under, you run under before it catches you. That's the key. So there's like a certain amount of tension to it. What do we catch as you like touches you? Yes. That silky goodness. Don't you want that touch in you? No, or else you dissolve. Oh, okay. But anyway, I just, you know, in field day in the 80s, like there was tug of war all over the

place, but you don't see it much anymore until Squid Game came around. And I think that did sort of reignite some interest, including myself. Totally. And it's from this research that we've done on this, your experience and my experience too, at that age where, you know, tug of war is like a big part of your life. That's the most you can possibly experience or get out of it. You got everything there was to get out of it pretty much, except for knowing that it was an Olympic sport for 20 years. That's right. And Squid Game is a TV show, by the way. And then we often just talk about things as if people know what they are. Well, I mean, who hasn't heard of Squid Games? Did you watch it?

Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yes. Me and everybody else on the planet. That's why you just mistitled it. I just was curious. What did I call it? Squid Games. Is it Squid Game? I think it's just Squid Game, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, I really fumbled that one. Well, it's better than Squid's Game, because that's a whole different show. That sounds like how Hodgman would pronounce it. Probably so. So, yeah, if you haven't seen Squid Game, go check it out. It's amazing.

And it's on Netflix. And actually, it alone is worth getting a month's subscription to Netflix if you don't have it. Yeah, but we'll talk about the strategy they use, which made for great television, but apparently it's not a thing, disappointingly. Yeah, but if you haven't seen Squid Games, don't listen to that part. Just put your fingers in your ears and shout, me, me, me, at the top of your lungs in very high-pitched voice until we're done. Right. So, we're talking about Tug of War, believe it or not. And I think Chuck, just in the spirit of people who say,

stop saying unless you've been living under a rock, you haven't heard of something. We should explain what Tug of War is, okay? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. So, in the modern sense of the word, Tug of War is a game that's played between, it can be as few as two people. It can be as many as your imagination can fit onto a rope. And the people are on two sides, they're opposing sides, and they're pulling in opposite directions on that rope. And the point of the game is to pull your opponent past some line to where you've just won, or pull them, knock them down,

pull it until they let go of the rope, or there's a few different ways to win, but generally you're pulling your opponent past some line, and then you've won, and you can run around shouting yes and thrusting your fist in the air. That's right. I think the most fun versions, especially on television, are when there's a mud pit in the middle. Sure. In the case of Squid Game, it is a battle to the death, that's all we'll say. In elementary school, it's usually on the gymnasium floor with some tape, or like a ribbon hanging down from the rope. Or maybe if the phys ed teacher hadn't pre-planned,

it's just their whistle and their lanyard forming a line on the floor. That's right. In the case of Revenge of the Nerds, the nerds have no chance. I guess I should say spoiler alert. Oh, I remember what happens there. They let go. They did. They won by losing. That's right. They let go, and the jocks fell into the dusty dirt, and the nerds just said, congratulations, you won. Boy, Ogre was so mad. Ogre was so mad. So that's it. That's Tug of War, and you've probably played it before. It is true. I'm just giving you some grief that there's nothing more to it. There is a surprising amount more to it,

because it is a ridiculously simple game. But it's so simple, Chuck, that Ed, who helps us out with this, makes a really good point. Basically, if you threw a dart at any part of the globe, you would probably find some historic tradition of some form of Tug of War. It spans millennia. It crosses geographic and cultural boundaries. It's just been invented multiple times in multiple places, because it's just such a simple concept. And yet at the same time, it still gives you that thrill that any game or struggle should give you when you win. Do you want to hit some history? Do you want to save that? I think we should hit some history. It just makes sense to put it at the beginning if you ask me.

Yeah. So, yeah, you're right. I mean, we're talking Vikings did it. The Nordic sports did it across streams. There have been various versions of like man versus beast at times, or machine versus machine. Yeah. The British Navy, in 1845, they used a Tug of War to settle a debate on whether a propeller-driven ship was better than the old paddle wheel. And of course, the propeller won. Yeah. So, it's been a way to settle disputes at times. Yeah. And I think it still is. It's not quite as good at settling a dispute as, say, rock, paper, scissors. It takes longer. And there's, you know, potential injuries we'll see. But yes, you can settle disputes. Potential amputation, which scissors will never do in rock, paper,

scissors. No. Try as hard as you can. You just can't do it. What about this, the Rasekashi? Yeah. So, apparently, India has a long tradition of Tug of War-like games. And I guess their version of Tug of War is called Rasekashi. And you can still tune into game shows today where, like, that's part of the game show is like a tug of war. And there's not, you know, normally when you watch a game show, there's like a, there's just a certain amount of pepiness and like lightness to the whole thing. No. The one I saw of this Rasekashi competition, it looked like a game show was indoors in a stage and like the host was wearing a suit or whatever. But they were dead serious about this. Like, they took it really seriously. And that's apparently out of the

Punjab region of India. There's an entirely different part of India called Konark. There's a sun temple there that was built in the 13th century. And there's a depiction of Tug of War on the wall there. So, it's been around in India for quite some time, hundreds and hundreds of years at least. Yeah. And of course, when Europeans came to the Americas, and this is sort of unclear whether or not they brought it with them or whether or not it existed previously to Indigenous people of the Americas, which is very possible because they had all kinds of kind of folky sports that they played. And tug of war, you know, I think what piqued my interest from the beginning was the rudimentary nature of it, which is like you said, sometimes just one person on one side

and one person on another. And can you pull them, can you out, either maybe outwit them or usually just outmuscle them to do so? So, perhaps Native American tribes did this to begin with. But at any rate, the colonizers would play these games sometimes, including tug of war. And Ed points out sometimes it was a friendlier way to say, I can dominate you rather than just killing someone. Right, right. Yes. And again, that's a way to settle disputes or tension as well, or it can be if it's done right. Like we'll take these 5,000 acres. Because we won a tug of war. Because we pulled you over that arbitrary line. Right. There is tug of war in China. There is tug of war. There's a longstanding tug of war that started in the 14th century in Korea called the

Kijisi Jewel Darigi Festival. I think he nailed it. They have it every year. And it's substantially different from most other tug of war that you've ever seen. Sorry, tugs of war that you've seen. And that the rope is enormous. Typically, it's about 200 meters long, that's 600 feet for you American school kids, a meter thick, weighing 40 tons. It's big. And you're like, well, how do you even get your arms around a three-foot circumference rope? Well, you don't. It has actual ropes, smaller ropes that you can handle coming off of it. And hundreds of people will participate in this. And the whole town turns out for it. And it's amazing to see. And I was like, that certainly rings a bell because Yumi's told me many, many times that one of her fondest childhood memories

is the tug of war festival in Naha, in Okinawa, where she was born and raised. And they've been doing that since the 17th century. And it bears such a striking resemblance to the one from Korea that obviously the Koreans influenced them. But it's the east of the town and the west of the town. And their rope is even bigger and even more people come. Apparently in 1995, they set the world record. There were 270,000 people in attendance and 15,000 people participating on the east and the west side. And I can't remember which one that year. It was quite a party to see that video. And I imagine the Japanese festival is much like the one in Korea where the tug of war itself is really not the fun. The fun is getting together,

building this rope together. I imagine there's a little bit of drinking that goes on. Yeah, Ted. And everyone just has a good time. It's sort of in the spirit of friendship rather than let me try and dominate you. Right, exactly. Because I mean, they're all from the same time. It's just the east side of the town, the west side of the town. So I asked Yumi about that because I hadn't heard about the rope being constructed. Apparently at the Korean festival, they make the rope every year. And I was like, did they construct the rope every year? And she's like, I don't think so. And I said, well, where did they store this 43 ton, 600 foot long rope? And she's like, I don't know. So I need to get to the bottom of that of whether they made the

rope themselves. But she was a kid. They would go every year and she just, it was like the biggest deal every year in Okinawa. So she was the anchor. She was. She was cheering them on. I think she did participate at least one year. That's cute. You just grab a rope, you know, and pull. Yeah, exactly. I think some people say that it was one of the original ancient Olympic sports, but there's not a ton to back this up as being true. It may have been. But as Ed points out, it, you know, it didn't, it didn't get a lot of press even if it was. So it was never that highly regarded. And when it was an official Olympic sport in the modern Olympics, it was still in the early 1900s was still not super highly regarded in that you didn't feel

like an American, an official American team. There were clubs, teams, club teams that would show up and could participate like multiple from one country. And then sometimes they would just feel the team from people in other sports. But if you were like a shot putter, it would say, no, go do the shot put, like, I know you're on the anchor for the team, but it the schedules conflict and you should do the shot put because that's a real event. Yeah, for sure. Which is sort of sad. It is sort of sad, especially if you were like the one guy in the tug of war team who like really took it seriously and all of a sudden your team dissolved because the shot putter had to go shot put and so on. That's right. You want to take a break and then come back and talk a

little more about the Olympic history of it. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot,

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Okay Chuck, so there's a lot of legend and lore around this very short period of Olympic history that Tug of War appeared in. And a lot of it's wrong. Like you were saying that it was an original ancient games event and there's no real evidence of that. There's also a widely held fact that a guy named Konstantin Enriquez de Zubiera was the first black Olympic athlete and that he won a silver in Tug of War and gold in rugby in the 1900 Olympics. And apparently that's partly true, but not 100%. Right. I think it was a case of mistaken identity usually, which just one of those internet things where it keeps getting repeated anyway. But there was a Colombian named Francisco Enriquez de Zubiera that did win a silver medal for Tug of War,

but a Haitian Konstantin Enriquez won rugby. Okay. So Konstantin Enriquez was the first black Olympic athlete. He just had nothing to do with Tug of War. I think that's the case. But I mean, that's the kind of depth that we have to get to to make Tug of War interesting. His case is of mistaken identity. I wasn't even going to mention it actually, but sure. Okay. So, okay. So there was a 20 year period from 1900 to 1920 Olympics. You could find Tug of War unless your team had gotten dissolved. And apparently that happened frequently enough that I believe in the 19, oh, what Olympics was it? To where so many teams got dissolved that they only gave out a gold and a silver medal that year. Which means how many teams were there?

Two. Two. All the other teams got dissolved and there were two teams left. So you had a 50-50 chance, I guess, of either coming in silver or gold and 100% chance of meddling that year. Yeah. That's not bad at all. I know in 1908, there was a police team, the Liverpool Police at the Olympics. Again, you could field club teams and that's what they did in England. They had these big boots because as we'll see later, one of the biggest keys is the physics of feet on the floor and having big heavy shoes. If you're doing this on an outdoor, like on the grass, you can dig in with some big heavy boots. And apparently the US team filed a protest because they wore these big giant Doc Martens or something like that, I guess.

All right. So that year, actually, the Liverpool Police team got a silver medal and the Brits actually swept the podium. The City of London Police got gold, Liverpool Police got silver and the Metropolitan Police K Division got bronze. Weird. It's like all these cops battling, all these Barbies battling it out. It is. But the reason why is, apparently, it was a big deal in Britain. It was a big deal in Ireland as well. And your local police force probably had a tug-of-war team because tug-of-war was part of their training. And from what I saw, that actually originated from the British Navy using tug-of-war as training to hoist sales and all that stuff. You got to basically do that in real life. So they would use tug-of-war and then

the cops kind of picked it up as police forces came into existence in the UK. And then because with the Olympics, there weren't national teams, you could have club teams. That's how you could have three different police force tug-of-war teams sweeping the podium for Great Britain in the 1908 Olympics. That's right. And they still, I think, still use it in the American military because not only is it a good workout, but it's a morale builder. You get these divisions or platoons against one another. And, you know, it's a good group sport, especially in the military, like sort of a just a brute-strength thing to try and rally your battalion. I keep saying all these different words because I don't know what they call each other. Sure. Platoons, battalions,

groups, teams. Book clubs. Book clubs against one another. 1920 was the last time it was at the Olympics because they looked around in 1920 and said, we have way too many events. And what gets cut, of course, tug-of-war was one of those. And, you know, there is, I don't know about a groundswell, but certainly after Squid Game, there were a few people wondering if it should come back in the Olympics. And I doubt it ever will, but you never know. There were some things that happened, though. Apparently back in 1999, the tug-of-war International Federation, who we'll talk a little bit more about later, it was recognized by the International Olympic Committee.

Yeah. And that's something. Yeah, which that's a huge first step to ending up with your sport in the Olympics, but then just two years later or three years later, the IOC told the media, like, you know, the TWIF is going to really have to get a lot better funding and a lot more international participation before it's going to end up in the Olympics. It has a long way to go, if ever, it will show up again. Yeah. And, you know, Ed, I hate to say it. Ed points it out. It's kind of true, though. It's not the most exciting thing to watch when you watch competition tug-of-war. Even watching

that superstars clip from earlier in my childhood, it was an hour and 15 minutes long of these guys basically lying there in the sand with an equal taughtness on both sides of the rope. Like, nothing was happening. They're exhausted. Like I said, they're taking their hands off to, like, massage their hands and try and regain some bit of a grip, but it ended in a draw. No one even won. It was really... Oh, my goodness. I know. There's not even a great ending to the story, like, with Lou Ferrigno and he beat Billy Crystal. Billy Crystal? Well, they were on teams, but Billy Crystal was on one side. Lou Ferrigno was on the other.

Okay. Battle of the Network stars. I guess it was soap. Okay. At the time was the show Billy Crystal represented. But at least, you know, Lou Ferrigno and Daisy Duke and his team won. But no one even won in the sand that day. They just dig in, lay there, and eventually they said, we got to stop this madness. So let's set a time limit. Like, as they were going, they set the time limit when it was clear nothing was going on. It was terrible television. And so they set it an hour and 15 and it stopped and nobody won.

And that was kind of it. And sometimes that's how it goes. Howard Cosell just comes on and goes, I'm sorry, folks. I'm very, very sorry. Oh, no, it wasn't Cosell. He did the Battle of the Network stars, though. Okay. Lou Ferrigno. That was Catherine Hepburn. Lou Ferrigno. Yeah, you're right. I don't even know who that was. So we should probably talk a little bit about the TWIF. We revealed that there is an

international federation of tug of war. And they actually came about from what I saw Chuck. Because after the Olympics, people said, after the 1920 Olympics, I don't know if, yeah, you did say that they finally said, we're cutting these. Tug of war is not making the cut. That didn't diminish interest in tug of war in a lot of the countries where it was already popular. So they actually started assembling national teams. And some national teams have been assembled for the Olympics already anyway, but they had no way to compete against one another. They can only compete within their countries. And so the guy named George Hutton got together with the Swedes and said, hey, let's form the tug of war international federation back in 1960.

And the rest is history known to half a dozen people. George E.F. Hutton. Remember that commercial? Maybe. I was thinking George Timothy Hutton. Because when he talks, people listen. Oh, is that who that was? Yeah. Remember that commercial? Sure. I remember, but I could never remember what brokerage it was. Yeah. I mean, this show is just overflowing with 80s references now all of a sudden. Yeah. Do you remember the Sirenight Live spoof for that?

No. Oh, I think it was Robert Smigel. And they did. They just nailed the commercial. It looked exactly like it. But he would just start saying all these like bizarre things with like the full attention of the room of these people just enrapt. I can't remember what he would say, but it's definitely worth looking up, I'm sure. Somebody used to do a documentary on Smigel. They did one on the Dana Carvey show. Have you seen that? No. Oh, it was on Hulu and they said like,

Too Funny to Live is the name of it or something like that. And it was about this show like Dana Carvey just basically gave Robert Smigel like carte blanche to make the weirdest, funniest show of all time. No, I know what you're talking about. I actually saw that. You saw the show? No, I saw the documentary about the Dana Carvey show. I thought you meant on the Dana Carvey show they did a segment or something. I got you. Oh, no, but I'm saying like that's probably the closest you can come to a Smigel documentary right now, unfortunately. You're right. That's a good doc, too.

It was. It was. But if you're talking international tug of war competition, it is not just, you know, I hate to bring it up again, but on the superstars, as we'll see, weight is a really obviously huge key factor in whether or not you went up tug of war. So like boxing and like wrestling, you have to match weights. So they actually had, I think the baseball team had one extra dude even than the football side. This was not official in any capacity from what you're describing. Well, they had to match weight. You know, that was what it was all about.

Oh, okay. I see what I see. You know what I mean? Okay, I got you. So the baseball players were lighter than the football team, so they had one extra person. Okay. Okay. But in international competition, there are eight people on a team. I don't even know if there's a way in for these. Is there? Yes. Yes. Most decidedly, it's extremely important.

Well, then I mean, what do they say? Like you just have to match weight with the other team and like playing your team accordingly? Yes. And I don't think it's down to like the pound or maybe even the kilogram, necessarily, but it's got to be close enough. There's a class and your team has to weigh within this weight class. Oh, okay. I got you. I got you. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, that makes more sense.

It's not pound for pound necessarily, but it has to be an eight person team and they have to, like the combined weight of the team has to fall within this window for the class. Okay. That makes sense. Just like boxing and wrestling in fact. Right. But divided by eight people. Right. Yeah. The rope itself is, and we should note, again, like I said, you don't tie the rope around the anchor. There are not knots in the rope. Like sometimes elementary school versions, you have knots to make it easier for little kid hands to hold on to and stuff like that. Not true at all in international competition

or any real, you know, like genuine tug of war, you're not going to have knots in the rope. No. And supposedly most people recommend, although despite his best efforts, could not find verification, I couldn't either, that the TWIF, it's got to be TWIF, right? That's what I call it. That TWIF mandates that the rope has to be a natural fiber, but if you are, if you're doing anything kind of pro or organized, really even any tug of war, you want to use a natural fiber rope because they're less prone to snapping. They're also less prone to stretching. Yeah. And as we'll see, both of those are really bad things that can happen, especially if you

use a synthetic rope. So you're not supposed to use, most likely, a synthetic rope. You want to use natural fiber. Right. And in this case, it's 33 and a half meters long and between 10 and 12 and a half centimeters in circumference. So it's 110 feet long, about four to five inches in circumference. Yeah. And the anchor, like I said, they don't tie the rope around their waist, but they are, the only people allowed to manipulate the rope in a way other than just holding it, palms up, which is what everyone else has to do. Like you can't wrap it around your wrist. That's a bad idea, as we'll see later. Yeah. So long to your coding career. Yeah, exactly. But the anchor will, they will pass the rope over their shoulder and then around

their back diagonally, then under the opposite armpit and then back over the front of their body and then back under that armpit. So it's sort of like a little figure eight that they wrap around their body, but it's never tied. Right. And from what I've seen, it looks like it can be released pretty easily and quickly too. It's not going to like tear the person in two. And also, they're the ones that are the furthest back. So they would be least affected by a catastrophic break of the rope. Right. Or fall into a pit of vipers. One thing that I didn't notice or realize before that I thought was pretty interesting, but it makes total sense is that if you are a puller, so like you said, the anchor is the only

one who can do anything like wrapping the rope around even their hand. You can grip the rope, palms up, and that's it. You can't like move hand over hand to like gain length on the rope. That's illegal. Yeah, you can't walk up the rope. Right. It's called, I think, climbing in quotes, climbing the rope. Like you have to basically keep your hands in roughly the same area, which means that all of the pull on the rope, all of the movement on the rope is created by your leg power. Like you're holding onto the rope with your arms to keep it from being, to keep yourself from being pulled back. But you're also, you're mostly using your leg power, like almost all of the strategy in the point of tug-of-war is in the legs.

Yeah, you're literally walking the rope backwards. Lou Ferrigno and team, they could, it was, it's like the Wild West. They were pulling that thing hand over hand. Right, you can't do that. Until Billy Crystal was in that water pool. I didn't know you can't do that, but now I understand. You can't do that. No, just for TV. Yeah, you got to just dig in and pull, pull, pull. You have a coach. Another name for a coach is a driver. And the driver, it's a big deal. The driver walks up and down the line. And there are, like I said, great periods of rests where you have to just sort of, you aren't allowed to lay down though, again, like on TV, you can't do that. You have to keep

on your feet. But there are still periods of what you would call rest. And then the driver will mount a challenge, you know, a unified, in unison, pull, pull, pull. And you know, that's, it's sort of like being the, who's the person, my mom does the dragon boat racing, the person in the back of the boat steers and like calls. The coxswain? Yeah, that's what I thought of too, in the growing crew. Yeah, I mean, dragon boat, they actually steered. Is the, do they do that in the rowing team? No, the coxswain doesn't do anything except shout into like a little, like varsity. We're going to hear it. Probably. The coxswain society. That's right. Who you've heard of, unless you've been living under a rock. That's right. Hey, maybe speaking of rock,

we should crawl under one and take a quick break. Before we talk about some of the supportive gear and footwear, which is super exciting stuff. Okay, cool. All right, we'll be right back. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush, boyband or each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately,

I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right. I promise footwear. And supportive gear. Yeah, supportive gear. You can wear like belts and knee pads and stuff like that. Or like a weight belt. Huh? Like a weight lifting belt. Yeah. You ever have one of those? No, I've never been quite that into it. Yeah. When you show up to the gym and one of those, you're sending a statement. You definitely are. You say, I'm into lifting weights. That's right. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not making fun of it. Especially if you have like your name burned into it. Right. And some like, like steer horns or something. Yeah. Or like that filigree. Right. But the footwear, I talked earlier about friction. I mean, tug of war is all about

feet meeting the ground and that friction and being able to maintain your place and digging in. And you, if you're indoors in a gymnasium, you're probably just wearing some kind of good sneaker, but outside you're allowed to wear these big boots and with big heels. And I guess they regulate this for competition because you don't want to be like the English police team, the Liverpool police and overdo it, but you are allowed to wear certain kinds of big boots. You are. And again, it's like, that's the reason why you're wearing boots is because that is where you're winning or losing the game is in your leg power and how much contact you have with the ground and how much of that you can use to propel yourself

and your team backward holding onto the rope and then thus pulling the other team over that center line. That's right. Should we talk about a match? Yeah, I think we should. I think we've reached the point. We've laid it out enough Chuck that everybody's ready for a match for us to describe through audio, a tug of war match. All right. So you got that rope slain on the ground. May or may not be a mud pit or water in the middle, but for competition, that's usually like TV kind of stuff. I don't think they really do that in legit competitions. No, they don't. It's got to be on turf grass if it's outdoors or either a gym floor or a special pad that gives you a lot more traction on an indoor match. That's right. So there's a judge, I guess,

like a referee. They would say, take up the rope. Everyone on each side would pick up the rope. They would say, take the strain. That just means you pull it tight and taught, but you're not like actually pulling on each other yet. And then you have that thing. They center it right in the middle. You probably got like something hanging down or some tape in the center of the rope. It's going to line up with the center of the match floor. And then on either side and in true competition, I think it's actually marked out four meters on either side of center. Yes. But depending on if you're doing playground versions or battle the network stars, that number can vary. But this is the official twift style is four meters is where you want to pull your opponent to.

Yes. So that that center line that's marked on the rope has to be pulled over either of those other lines on either side. The sideline marking is what it's called. So if you pull that center line on to the over the sideline that's closest to you, you just want advice first. That's right. I think, yeah, I think we're doing a great job here at Chuck. I think so. The judge obviously is going to shout ready, pull. And then that's when it starts. Yeah, they shoot a shotgun in the air. And then these are actually scored though. They're matches. Each match has two tugs or two pulls. And if you win two to nothing, if you win both, you get three points. If you each win one, you each get one point. And then you just progress sort of in a round robin kind of way

tournament style. Yeah. And then sudden death is best two pulls out of three, I believe. Right. And if you do dig in superstars way, and you're there for an hour and 15 minutes, and nothing's going on, the judge can say call a no pull, which I guess is just like a tie. Or if one team is just really not doing anything, you can actually be disqualified. Yes. I think that would be the no, a no pull call if you're not doing anything. Or I think both teams can get a no pull call if they both wear each other out and they both just kind of stop. If they both start laying around like the 78 Royals and whatever football team they're playing, that would be a clear no pull against both teams. Yeah, that's the tie. The game would be disqualified.

Yeah. Well, I guess a tie. You're both kicked out and chained. You're both lost. You're all thrown into the mud pit. That's right. By the judge. So this is, this is still going on. These rules are still being followed in national and international competition. September of 2022, the world championships will be in the Netherlands. Okay. And there's, yeah, there's plenty of like national and local polls, tug of war polls, that go on every Sunday, I believe starting at 11 is the official time. Wherever your local time is, if there's a tug of war competition and they're doing it at 11am on a Sunday, it's probably official. Yeah, this smacks of the kind of thing. Like, you know how

there's, I know, you know, there's kickball teams, recreational kickball leagues, because you and Jerry famously played on a kickball team together many years ago. That's right. It seems like a hundred years ago, doesn't it? A thousand maybe. There's dart teams, there's bocce leagues, softball, I bet you they're local tug of war leagues. Surely. There's just no way, especially after squids games. Yeah, you just get drunk on, on liquor and we'll each other into the mud. That's right. But officially, I think there's seven, 73 countries that are members of the twif, of twif. How many? 73. By my count, according to the rules that were published in 2020. By your count, where you were like, one, two, three. Right, and then I keep getting messed up

around 17 or 18 and it's a start over. Here's what you do, you copy paste that into the word dot. Oh, that's a good thing. Just hit number. Yeah, that's a great idea. But then it does the thing where it goes 1a and b and you're like, what are you even doing, word? Formatting. And I want it formatted like that. Right. Some people hate that program. Hate word? Yeah, there's a big word, anti-word backlash. I suspect that's really a anti-Microsoft backlash. You think? I think so. All right. All right, so where are we? So we're talking about how to be good at tug of war, I think. Sure, you got to be strong and have big shoes. Which I realized just now as I'm looking through my notes, I'm missing that page. Don't worry about it. It also doesn't matter. Because

you basically said what you have to do, that you need to wear like really good shoes that are heavy. You need to have explosively powerful legs. You need to have arm strength, which is something that I hope, which is something I think is worth pointing out. If you are actually good at tug of war and you compete in tug of war competitions and you are doing stuff like world competitions through TWIFT, you are an extraordinarily all-around fit person and very strong person. Because playing tug of war in any kind of competitive level requires a lot of different muscle groups, and all of those muscle groups have to be really, really strong. That's right. I guess we could talk a little bit about Squid Game here. If you have not seen it and you want to or you don't want

something spoiled, just don't listen for the next couple of minutes. But there's a great, great pivotal scene in that great show where, and the concept of the show is that there are these people that have been gathered together who are all very desperate usually because of money and financial woes who are pitted against one another in these childhood games to the death. And the winner gets a lot of money here at the end. And tug of war is one of them. And this is a tug of war, though, that is staged many, many floors up and you fall to your death and you lose like forever as in your life has gone, the ultimate loss. So in Squid Game, the weaker team pulls out a victory against a stronger team because of a very brilliant strategy employed by the elder

statesmen of the weak team, wherein they all start out with their feet parallel to one another, dug in, and they all, the first thing they do is lean all the way back and look up at the sky and just sit there and don't move. And then their strategy, I believe, was to, at a certain point, when one person says so, is to release the ropes to get the other team off balance and then grab it again and start this, huh, huh, huh, all pulling in these big unified tugs and they won. They did win. Yeah, this other stronger, heavier, more fit team fell to their death because you left out that you're connected to that rope. Oh, sure.

So when one guy goes down, they take the rope with them and thus comes the rest of the team, too. That's right. It's pretty brutal. But there was a study that you found in Esquire magazine of all places that some people basically experimented with it. They got a group of smaller, weaker people compared to the other team and used that strategy. And how did it pan out, Chuck? Well, it didn't pan out like the TV show. Obviously, the TV show was dramatized for to great effect. But I did read in another article about that same quote unquote study that in theory, it could work and this wasn't the best test of it.

And that there was something to that initial stance and dig in at least. Okay. So I think we finally reached like far and away the absolute most interesting part of tug of war is getting your arms ripped off. Yeah. That you can suffer serious injury and potentially even death from playing tug of war if you don't know what you're doing and you don't do it right because people have before. Yeah. I mean, there have been amputations, obviously some really awful accidents with kids when they would wrap their hands around, you know, the rope around their wrist and stuff like that, little, little digits that were had to be amputated. A lot of the injuries come from the rope snap that we talked about using a nylon rope.

Right. It'll pull like a rubber band and then snap and that can has killed people. Yeah. Because teams of people and the more people you add to a team, the more dangerous the game becomes for a couple of reasons. One is the likelihood of snapping a rope is increases. And then also when that rope snaps, all those people fall backward all of a sudden and so people can get crushed and trampled and that happens as well. But when you have two teams of people, even like little kids, as long as there's enough little kids, they're exerting tons and tons of force on that rope that's being stored in the rope. And as I was saying earlier with synthetic ropes, they stretch more, which means that more tension is being stored, more

energy is being stored in that rope. So that when it does finally snap, more energy is suddenly released. And when it's released, Chuck, when that rope snaps backward, it snaps backward with so much force, depending on how much force is stored in it, that it has torn people's arms off. Like they didn't let go fast enough and their arms still holding onto the rope flew away from them. That's like something out of squid game, but it's real. Yeah, that happened in, I think, Taiwan in the 90s, I believe, 1997 in Taipei. It happened to not one, but two people who were playing tug-of-war. They were the first people closest to the opposing side on either side. That's who had their arms torn off.

Yeah. And here's a word of advice. If you ever see an ad that says, hey, come down and be a part of this Guinness World Record tug-of-war, don't do it. No. That's a bad idea. Accidents happen there as well. And like you said, also, if you loop, do not ever, even fun recreation tug-of-war, don't loop the rope around your hand because the force that's being exerted on the rope finds its way into that loop, which wants to close and it's closing around your fingers. And like you said, not only have people had their fingers amputated later because they got so torn off, the rope itself can amputate your fingers. Yeah. Like you can just lose some fingers messing around at a local tug-of-war

competition that's for charity. It has happened before too. So be safe, everyone. I got one more thing on squid game. So again, big spoiler coming. Okay. Don't listen. I'll give you a few seconds. Okay. The thing I didn't think about, you saw it through the end of the show? Yeah. Yeah. The thing I didn't think about until today was that that tug-of-war game had to be rigged because the old man was the organizer of the whole thing. So he wouldn't going to fall to his death. No. So it was rigged. The tug-of-war had to be rigged. Yeah, but I'm not sure how. You might have just found like a plot hole more than anything.

Well, I read online and some people say that like it was a genuine win, but there were the people up there watching like the guards were like ready to step in in case it looked like that he was going to get pulled in or something. I got you. So it was, they could have cut the rope or something to prevent that from happening, but then the jig would have been up. Yeah, or they could have, maybe they had a plan to make it seem like, you know, there was something that, however, but those guards, man, how well done was their uniform just to make them just creepy anonymous? Yeah. That was, it was awesome. I really love the show. I can't wait for what's coming in season two. Me, whoa, is there going to be a season two? Yeah. I mean, it ends with dude coming back

as a genuine tough dude, like going back. Remember, he could have left and he went back. Yeah. Yes. But I didn't know that there was definitely going to be a season two. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's going to go back there like Linda Hamilton. Jack Black and Kung Fu Panda. Terminator two. Yeah. Okay. There you go. I think that's a more apt. Is that her name, Linda Hamilton? Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. I thought I got it wrong. No, you got it right, man. Just like you got tug-of-war right. But did we? Did I? Yes, we did. We did. You got anything else? No. No tic-tac-toe. I promise we're done with this two-part series. All right.

Well, since Chuck said we're done, that means we're done, and that means, of course, everybody, it's time for Listener Mail. Unless we do thumb wrestling. If there's something to it, sure. Maybe a shorty. I'm always down with interesting stuff like that, as long as there's something to it. All right. I'm going to call this eagle versus hawk and another chance to poke fun at Jerry a little bit. Okay. This goes down in history alongside the Wilhelm Scream. Oh, don't forget, same old Langzine. Oh, that's right. So yeah, our beloved sister and producer, Jerry, who we like to tease occasionally, we will call for a special effect here and there, and sometimes she has a knack for getting them wrong. And that's the

case with eagle versus hawk. Hey, guys, just listen to the cookies episode and heard the eagle cry, quote unquote, denoting the golden age of cookies. Want to let you know that bird cry you use was probably a red-tailed hawk. Hollywood prefers the red-tailed hawk cry to the actual eagle cry, because it sounds much more majestic. The first time I ever heard an eagle make a noise, I thought for sure it was a giant mutant chicken. Much more of an aggressive cluck. Definitely understand why Hollywood makes this choice, but I remember being gooped by this fact. Never heard that used that way. So wanted to share it with you all. Thanks and have a happy new year. In my defense, I knew that was a hawk. The eagle sound was so pitiful, I didn't use it. Hey, there's Jerry,

guys. She actually stepped in to defend herself. There she is. Chuck, I feel like an era's just ended. Well, she's been on before, but that was the most blatant Jerry yet. It was pretty blatant, but I think that was a good one, Jerry's. Way to step in. PS, is your board game sold out? I was sad to not see it under the Christmas tree this year. Accordually, your resident bird nerd, Katie Rose Souter. Katie, the board game did sell out in some, in a lot of online retailers, but it's going to be back soon, right? Actually, Chuck, I think that they're, I don't know if they're sold out or not, but they were sold out everywhere in the world, except for Indigo, which is Canada's largest bookstore. They had some as of the beginning of the holiday season earlier, but

they may be out. But from what our friends at Hasbro tell us, they should be back in stock at the end of this month, the end of January. That's right. But anyway, thank you, Katie Rose Souter for that email. Yes, thank you, Katie Rose. And if you want to be like Katie Rose and send us an email, you can. You can wrap it up, spank it on the Eagles butt, and send it off to StuffPodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed.

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.