FP MOVEMENT

We Tried It: Handball

By: Sarah Moxham

Making your list of Paris must-see events? Make sure handball is on it.

My first association with handball is from high school gym class – think stuffy gym, sticky ball, those jerseys they made us wear that definitely never got washed – good times.

So when we pulled up to a beautiful park in New York City to play handball with a group of world-class athletes, I was excited to give handball another try.

We met up with the New York City Team Handball Club and coach Shkumbin Mustafa, along with Swedish handball legend, Staffan Olson – a three-time European champion with two world championship medals, and a four-time Olympic silver medalist – to learn the in’s and out’s of the game and try a game of handball for ourselves.

The New York City Team Handball Club was founded in 1973 by employees of the United Nations, and has an impressive track record of eight championship titles, with over 69 countries represented.

Perhaps most importantly, the Club engages New York-based youth through handball. So in addition to our visit, FP Movement issued a contribution which yielded two sets of goals and nets, a set of jerseys, and 10 handballs for their participants.

Handball is rapidly gaining traction in the US, and is super popular with young kids and adults alike, in places like the EU, South America, Asia, and Africa.

Olson and his assistants demonstrated rules and basic skills needed to play handball: throwing, passing, and shooting. Here’s the rundown:

THROWING:

After warming up, we paired up and threw the ball back and forth, really perfecting our overhand throw and even learning some tricks like throwing the ball behind our backs or bouncing it between our legs.

Throwing the ball in handball allows you to not only quickly move the ball, but to cover large distances over the court. You’re only allowed to take three steps while in possession of the ball, so you’ve got to make them count. Throwing lets you do more with those steps and set up plays for your team to score.

One of the things that makes handball unique is that it is extremely fast-paced, and requires a lot of communication and trust between teammates. While we were practicing these throwing drills, we encouraged each other to try new tricks, throw harder and farther, and build the foundation we needed to work well together as a team.

PASSING:

After we grew comfortable throwing the ball (about the size of a mini soccer ball), we moved to passing drills. We learned the best way to catch the ball, to follow through on our passes, and how to defend passes.

My favorite drill was the defensive drill. In handball, the goal is surrounded by a six-meter half-circle. Olson had us split into teams and everyone had to stand in the circle, and the first team to complete ten passes won. The losers had to do five jumping jacks. Was I on the losing team? Yes. But did I still learn a lot about communication? Also yes.

The key to the passing drills was communication, but not in the way I thought. It’s easy enough to say “I’m open!” and expect to be passed to. In this drill, and in the game of handball, you not only have to call out to your teammates, but you also have to move around to give them the opportunity to pass to you.

It was really interesting to shift my mindset to not only think about what I was doing, but to think about how it would impact our performance as a team. Was I standing in the right place? Is someone else more open than me? How can I help my team keep possession of the ball

“I felt like this mindset also translated well to my life outside of handball – my interactions with co-workers, friends, my partner – all of these relationships depend not only on us as individuals, but on the way we work together to make the relationship successful.”

SHOOTING:

You shoot, you score. Straightforward? I thought so, but was quite surprised to learn how much technique goes into effectively shooting on the handball goal. The goal in handball is only about six feet tall by nine feet wide, so relatively small compared to something like a soccer goal. Especially when you have a 6’5” world champion and Olympic medalist standing in front of it (thanks, Staffan!).

As a group we worked through some shooting drills, practiced aiming at different corners of the goal, bounced the ball into the goal versus throwing it, and even learned how to fake out the goalie.

The best shooting drill we tried was running up the field with a partner, passing back and forth, with one partner shooting on goal. I felt like this simulated game play really well but also combined all the skills and team dynamic we had built up so far. It was essential for us to communicate constantly as we ran, anticipating where our partner would be when we passed the ball so they could catch it and keep the drill going, and setting our partner up to shoot their best shot on the goal

At the end of our time with Olson and the New York City Team Handball Club, I felt energized and connected to my colleagues-turned-teammates. We all were pushed out of our comfort zone and got to bond with each other in new ways, which is where the real power of team sports like handball lies. Seeing the dedication it takes to perfect these skills and play the game at a high level makes me all the more excited to watch it at the Paris games this summer. Luckily enough, one of my coworkers will be there in person and already added handball to her viewing schedule.